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Non-invasive continuous respiratory monitoring using temperature-based sensors

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Abstract

Respiratory rate (RR) is a key vital sign that has been traditionally employed in the clinical assessment of patients and in the prevention of respiratory compromise. Despite its relevance, current practice for monitoring RR in non-intubated patients strongly relies on visual counting, which delivers an intermittent and error-prone assessment of the respiratory status. Here, we present a novel non-invasive respiratory monitor that continuously measures the RR in human subjects. The respiratory activity of the user is inferred by sensing the thermal transfer between the breathing airflow and a temperature sensor placed between the nose and the mouth. The performance of the respiratory monitor is assessed through respiratory experiments performed on healthy subjects. Under spontaneous breathing, the mean RR difference between our respiratory monitor and visual counting was 0.4 breaths per minute (BPM), with a 95% confidence interval equal to [− 0.5, 1.3] BPM. The robustness of the respiratory sensor to the position is assessed by studying the signal-to-noise ratio in different locations on the upper lip, displaying a markedly better performance than traditional thermal sensors used for respiratory airflow measurements.

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Acknowledgements

Authors gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of Dr. Fernando Altermatt and Dr. Maria Rodriguez-Fernandez in the human pilot study, and the insightful discussions about respiratory monitoring with Dr. Carolina Cabrera.

Funding

This research project was funded by Fundación Copec-UC Grant 2015.R.557 and by CORFO-Innova Grant 17ITE2-72695 awarded to DH and AA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, School of Engineering, and Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering, Schools of Engineering, Medicine and Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile

    Daniel E. Hurtado

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna, 4860, Santiago, Chile

    Angel Abusleme

  3. DICTUC S.A., Vicuña Mackenna, 4860, Santiago, Chile

    Javier A. P. Chávez

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  1. Daniel E. Hurtado
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  2. Angel Abusleme
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  3. Javier A. P. Chávez
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Correspondence to Daniel E. Hurtado.

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Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional ethics committee of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Project ID 170523007, approved October 19th, 2017). All subjects provided written informed consent to participate.

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Hurtado, D.E., Abusleme, A. & Chávez, J.A.P. Non-invasive continuous respiratory monitoring using temperature-based sensors. J Clin Monit Comput 34, 223–231 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10877-019-00329-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10877-019-00329-5

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