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Long Term Monitoring of Breathing Pattern Parameters by a Wearable System at COPD Patient's Home

Authors:
Leonardo Govoni
Valentina Isetta
Piero Giacomelli
Roberto Rosso
Ramon Farré
Raffaele Dellacà

Keywords: eHealth; telemedicine; home monitoring; chronic diseases; COPD; respiratory inductive plethysmography.

Abstract:
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a very prevalent disease which causes the deterioration of patient’s quality of life and frequent hospitalizations. Telemedicine can be a valid tool to reduce this burden. CHRONIOUS is a FP7 EU project aimed to create a platform for home monitoring of chronic ill patients.. It is composed of a wearable system which is a sensorized T-shirt which collects and transmits data coming from various sensors, among which chestwall and abdomen respiratory volumes by means of two inductive bands sewn into the T-shirt, a technique called respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP). The aim of this study was to assess the functionality and stability of the RIP included in the CHRONIOUS system for tidal volume (Vt) measurement on home long term setting. COPD patients were equipped with the CHRONIOUS system and were asked to wear the T-shirt for 1 hour per day, 3 days a week, for 2 months. We analyzed the data of one COPD patient (72 years old, BMI = 23 kg/m2, COPD stage III, FEV1% = 49%, FEV1/FVC = 40%) who used the CHRONIOUS system for a total of 40 days, performing a total of 17 acquisitions of one hour each. We computed the average of Vt for each acquisition session. Normalized Vt showed good stability in terms of mean±sd during the whole period of acquisitions (1±0.3). Moreover it has been possible to discriminate the breathing activity in terms of compartmental contributions (abdominal or thoracic). The preliminary results presented in this study show the potential usefulness of this new telemedicine approach for the long term monitoring of breathing pattern parameters.

Pages: 327 to 330

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2013

Publication date: February 24, 2013

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4359

ISBN: 978-1-61208-252-3

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from February 24, 2013 to March 1, 2013