Impedance plethysmography is a method of determining changing tissue volumes in the

body based on the measurement of electrical impedance at the body surface.

Impedance cardiography is a non-invasive and easy method to measure cardiac stroke
volume based on the impedances of the blood and tissue. It is used to measure the
blood volume changes in the thorax. The impedance is proportional to the blood volume
change.
In impedance plethysmography, the physical quantity used in measurement is tissue
impedance. While measuring bioelectric sources do not require measuring the reactive
component of impedance, impedance plethysmography utilises the frequency
dependence of tissue impedance by applying currents of different high frequencies (>1
kHz). The reactive component does not significantly affect the overall impedance at
frequencies <1 kHz. Different tissues have different reactive components when high
frequency currents are applied.
To illustrate the behaviour of tissue impedance as a function of frequency, the Cole-Cole
plot is used. In this plot, resistivity lies on the x-axis, and the reactivity on the y-axis.