Patent ID: 8257280

Claim:
A method for determining the circumference of a portion of a body segment covered by skin comprising: (a) applying a series of electrodes around said portion, said series of electrodes having a first electrode and a last electrode, the circumferential distances between all electrodes in the series being known, except for the distance between the first and last electrodes; (b) determining the resistance between at least two electrodes of the series, other than the first and last electrode, by applying a low frequency current which does not substantially penetrate the skin; (c) determining a resistivity value per unit length for the skin from the resistance determined in step (b) and the known circumferential distance between the two electrodes; (d) determining the resistance between the first and last electrodes of the series by applying a low frequency current which does not substantially penetrate the skin; and (e) calculating the distance between the first and last electrodes of the series from the resistance measured in step (d) and the resistivity value per unit length determined in step (c).