Novel methods for multiphase assessment of pulmonary dynamics in long term patient monitoring

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) related mortality and associated impairment of the quality of life, as well as related economic burden and predictive models of the future trends demonstrate that COPD is one of the critical health care issues in the Americas and globally. Therefore, it necessitates improved quantitative diagnostic methods and techniques for long term monitoring of patient’s conditions and active medical intervention, population comparative studies, and related comprehensive documentation of patients’ expanded pulmonary function tests. Presented work encompasses developed techniques for enhanced diagnostic evaluation and documentation of patient’s respiratory dynamics and includes modular spherical representation of respiratory flow, volume, time characteristics with a capability of planar projections, which may include among others currently used standard flow/volume loops. Those spherical and/or planar characteristics can be complemented by associative display and quantitative analysis of auscultatory events characterized in time and/or frequency domains thus going beyond present practice of qualitative description of auscultatory observation which, when described in this traditional form, have limited value in long term monitoring. Independently developed, but with parallel utilization capabilities, non contact image based extraction and evaluation of thoracic and abdominal respiration related movements allow quantitative evaluation of abnormal asynchronies. Portability of this PC based system with USB connectivity and developed software allow enhancement of patient’s pulmonary function and respiratory dynamics evaluation especially in long term monitoring of patients.