Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jul 21;14(7):13088-101.
doi: 10.3390/s140713088.

An optical fibre-based sensor for respiratory monitoring

Marek Krehel  1 , Michel Schmid  2 , René M Rossi  3 , Luciano F Boesel  4 , Gian-Luca Bona  5 , Lukas J Scherer  6
Affiliations

An optical fibre-based sensor for respiratory monitoring

Marek Krehel et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

In this paper, a textile-based respiratory sensing system is presented. Highly flexible polymeric optical fibres (POFs) that react to applied pressure were integrated into a carrier fabric to form a wearable sensing system. After the evaluation of different optical fibres, different setups were compared. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a wearable sensor, the setup featuring the best performance was placed on the human torso, and thus it was possible to measure the respiratory rate. Furthermore, we show that such a wearable system enables to keep track of the way of breathing (diaphragmatic, upper costal and mixed) when the sensor is placed at different positions of the torso. A comparison of the results with the output of some commercial respiratory measurements devices confirmed the utility of such a monitoring device.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Picture illustrating the integration of the fibre into the textile to form the sensing setup, herein called “half oval”.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Sensing system placed on a human subject study. Blue and black connectors are housings for the LED and the photodiode, respectively. The power supply is provided by the grey wires.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Sketch illustrating the electronics used to power the LED, and to amplify and to log the signal from the photodiode.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Picture presenting modification of half oval form. In (a) fibre was folded without cross points; whereas in (b) fibre crossing took place.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Graphs representing the slow breathing (a) and fast breathing (b) scenario. All four fibres types were measured for the two scenarios.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Graphs representing the data required to evaluate which sensor form is the best suited for respiratory rate measurements. On top slow breathing and on the bottom fast breathing.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Positions of setup placed on subject study. On the front side: (1) on a heart region; (2) above the navel; (3) above the left hipbone; and on the back side: (4) below left shoulder blade; (5) in the middle of the back.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Graphs representing data from different types of breathing and data required to find out what is the best place on human body to measure respiratory rate.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Cross comparison of respiratory data sets from our sensing system and from commercial device.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Bland-Altman plots comparing the results from respiratory rate of the oxycon device and our optical fibre sensor. Data taken from Figure 9. The three horizontal lines represent the mean ± 1.96 SD (standard deviation).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Cretikos M.A., Bellomo R., Hillman K., Chen J., Finfer S., Flabouris A. Respiratory rate: The neglected vital sign. Med. J. Aust. 2008;188:657–659. - PubMed
    1. Parkes R. Rate of respiration: The forgotten vital sign. Emerg. Nurse. 2011;19:12–17. - PubMed
    1. De Mayo T., Miralles R., Barrero D., Bulboa A., Carvajal D., Valenzuela S., Ormeno G. Breathing type and body position effects on sternocleidomastoid and suprahyoid emg activity. J. Oral Rehabil. 2005;32:487–494. - PubMed
    1. Costa D., Vitti M., de Oliveira Tosello D., Costa R.P. Participation of the sternocleidomastoid muscle on deep inspiration in man. An electromyographic study. Electromyogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. 1994;34:315–320. - PubMed
    1. Krieger B., Feinerman D., Zaron A., Bizousky F. Continuous noninvasive monitoring of respiratory rate in critically ill patients. Chest. 1986;90:632–634. - PubMed

Publication types