Apparatus and method for bioelectrical impedance measurements

Bioelectrical impedance measuring apparatus for determining composition data of the human body, said apparatus comprising:

• at least eight electrodes, with a pair of said electrodes being assigned to each of four limbs of the human body;
• measuring circuitry including current sources and current and voltage measuring circuitry selectively coupled to the electrodes;
• and
• a control and analysis unit configured to apply, according to a plurality of predetermined measuring programs, current to two electrodes specific for a selected one of the particular measuring programs, from the current sources to the body,
• said control and analysis unit being further configured to determine the resulting voltages with two other specific electrodes on different limbs by means of the voltage measuring circuitry and to determine the impedance of body segments based thereon,
• said control and analysis unit being further configured to determine, in an advance measurement by applying current via two electrodes and measuring the resulting current through the applying electrodes and/or voltages on the other electrodes, which electrodes have contact and, if not all electrodes were found to have contact, to select, on the basis of the determined configuration of electrodes with contact, such matching ones of the predetermined measuring programs, in which matching measuring programs only use electrodes for current application and voltage measurement contained in the determined configuration of electrodes having contact,
• said control and analysis unit being further configured to execute, if it is determined in the advance measurement that eight electrodes have contact, two for each of the limbs, available measuring programs for measuring of the impedance of each side of the body, of each arm, of each leg, and of the torso.