Measurement of chest wall displacement based on terahertz wave

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 106; no. 7
• Main Authors: Li, Hui, Lv, Hao, Jiao, Teng, Lu, Guohua, Li, Sheng, Li, Zhao, Liu, Miao, Jing, Xijing, Wang, Jianqi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 16.02.2015
• Subjects: Applied physics; Chest; Displacement; Guide rails; Human performance; Measurement methods; Optics; Patients; Respiratory system; Terahertz frequencies; Wave measurement; Waveforms
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4913561

Measurement of chest wall displacement is an important approach for measuring mechanics of chest wall, which has considerable significance for assessing respiratory system and diagnosing pulmonary diseases. However, existing optical methods for measuring chest wall displacement are inconvenient for some specific patients such as the female patients and the patients with bandaged chest. In this letter, we proposed a method for measuring chest wall displacement based on terahertz wave and established corresponding mathematic model and set up a terahertz measurement system. The main advantages of this method are that it can measure the chest wall displacement of the subjects without taking off clothes or arranging any markers. To validate this method and assess the performance of the terahertz system, in vitro, the displacement of a water module driven by a linear guide rail was measured by the terahertz system and compared with the actual displacement of the water module. The results showed that the waveforms measured with two methods have a good agreement, and the relative error is less than 5% and sufficiently good for measurement demands. In vivo, the synchronous experiment was performed on five human volunteers with the terahertz system and a respiratory belt transducer. The results demonstrate that this method has good performance and promising prospects for measuring chest wall displacement.