Concerns in using Segment Impedances for Estimation Body Composition in 8-polar Bioimpedance Measurement System

Abstract

Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) is a technique to estimate body composition. Eight-polar system is the most popular that considers the body consisting of five segments: arms, legs, and trunk. Even though there are commonly used measurement patterns to obtain these impedances, different measurement patterns can be used to obtain them as well. Furthermore, there are no distinct lines to divide the body into those segments. In this study, an investigation of different measurement patterns was performed. Fat content was simulated to observe the change of segment impedances. Results showed that the commonly-used measurement patterns were replaceable with some different patterns. The difference in impedance was less than 1%. However, some measurements should be avoided. It also found that adding fat in the outside regions of the arm and the leg segment resulted in less than 0.76% of impedance change of these impedances but adding outside the trunk region resulted in 8% of trunk impedance change, which is large. However, this was totally less than 1% of the total body impedance, which is ignorable. © 2022 IEEE.