Abstract
Continuous respiratory monitoring is important to assess adequate ventilation. We present a fiber optic-based smart textile for respiratory monitoring able to work during Magnetic Resonance (MR) examinations. The system is based on the conversion of chest wall movements into strain of two fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, placed on the upper thorax (UT). FBGs are glued on the textile by an adhesive silicon rubber. To increase the system sensitivity, the FBGs positioning was led by preliminary experiments performed using an optoelectronic system: FBGs placed on the chest surface experienced the largest strain during breathing. System performances, in terms of respiratory period (TR), duration of inspiratory (TI) and expiratory (TE) phases, as well as left and right UT volumes, were assessed on four healthy volunteers. The comparison of results obtained by the proposed system and an optoelectronic plethysmography highlights the high accuracy in the estimation of TR, TI, and TE: Bland-Altman analysis shows mean of difference values lower than 0.045 s, 0.33 s, and 0.35 s for TR, TI, and TE, respectively. The mean difference of UT volumes between the two systems is about 8.3%. The promising results foster further development of the system to allow routine use during MR examinations.
Highlights
The continuous respiratory monitoring is essential in different medical fields
Signals peaks were selected in order to compare the respiratory period (Tr), Ti, and Te estimated by the smart textile and the OEP, as well as to correlate variations of wavelength with changes in the upper thorax (UT) volume estimated by the OEP system for both left and right sides
The values of Tr, Ti, and Te estimated by the smart textile and the OEP were compared for all the subjects by Bland-Altman analysis
Summary
The continuous respiratory monitoring is essential in different medical fields. For instance it is crucial during anesthesia, for evaluating sleep apnea disorders, for monitoring of infants susceptible to SuddenInfant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and recently has been proposed to evaluate the coordination between nutritive sucking and respiration in preterm infants, to provide standardized and reliable measuring methods in assessing newborns’ neuro-motor status [1,2]. Several commercial devices monitor the efficacy of the respiration by assessing the blood oxygenation, the respiratory rate (i.e., the number of respiratory acts taken within a minute), the duration of inspiratory and expiratory phases, and estimate the tidal volume (i.e., the air volume inhaled or exhaled in a single breath). In most cases these devices cannot be used during procedure of Magnetic Resonance (MR) examinations. The necessity for devices able to work in MR room (i.e., MR-compatible systems), and providing the estimation of respiratory parameters during MR procedures is growing considerably
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