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A Study of Artifacts and Their Removal During Forced Oscillation of the Respiratory System

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Abstract

Respiratory impedance measured by the forced oscillation technique (FOT) can be contaminated by artifacts such as coughing, vocalization, swallowing or leaks at the mouthpiece. We present a novel technique to detect these artifacts using multilevel discrete wavelet transforms. FOT was performed with artifacts introduced during separate 60 s recordings at known times in 10 healthy subjects. Brief glottal closures were generated phonetically and confirmed by nasopharyngoscopic imaging of the glottis. Artifacts were detected using Daubechies wavelets by applying a threshold to squared detail coefficients from the wavelet transforms of both pressure and flow signals. Sensitivity and specificity were compared over a range of thresholds for different level squared detail coefficients. Coughs could be identified using 1st level detail (cd1) coefficients of pressure achieving 96% sensitivity and 100% specificity while swallowing could be identified using cd2 thresholds of pressure with 95% sensitivity and 97% specificity. Male vocalizations could be identified using cd1 coefficients with 88% sensitivity and 100% specificity. For leaks at the mouthpiece, cd3 thresholds of flow could identify these events with 98% sensitivity and 99% specificity. Thus, this method provided an accurate, easy, and automated technique for detecting and removing artifacts from measurements of respiratory impedance using FOT.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Scott Fulton for his assistance in spirometry measurements. This work was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Strategic Operating Grant in partnership with an Atlantic Innovation Fund award from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). S. A. Bhatawadekar was supported by the NSERC and the ACOA, D. Leary was supported by the Canadian Thoracic Society and Y. Chen was supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biomedical Engineering, Dalhousie University, 5981 University Avenue, PO Box 15000, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada

    Swati A. Bhatawadekar, Y. Chen & Geoff N. Maksym

  2. Department of Physics, Dalhousie University, 1459 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada

    Del Leary

  3. Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

    J. Ohishi

  4. Division of Respirology, Department of Medicine, QE-II Health Sciences Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    P. Hernandez, T. Brown & C. McParland

Authors
  1. Swati A. Bhatawadekar
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  2. Del Leary
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  3. Y. Chen
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  4. J. Ohishi
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  5. P. Hernandez
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  6. T. Brown
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  7. C. McParland
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  8. Geoff N. Maksym
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Geoff N. Maksym.

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Associate Editor John H. Linehan oversaw the review of this article.

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Bhatawadekar, S.A., Leary, D., Chen, Y. et al. A Study of Artifacts and Their Removal During Forced Oscillation of the Respiratory System. Ann Biomed Eng 41, 990–1002 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-012-0735-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-012-0735-9

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