Accurate measurement of respiratory airflow waveforms using depth data

• Published in: 2015 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC) Vol. 2015; pp. 7857 - 7860
• Main Authors: Seppanen, Tiina M., Kananen, Janne, Kai Noponen, Alho, Olli-Pekka, Seppanen, Tapio
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.08.2015
• Subjects: Adult; Atmospheric modeling; Belts; Biomedical measurement; Calibration; Cameras; Data models; Finite impulse response filters; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Male; Monitoring, Physiologic - instrumentation; Monitoring, Physiologic - methods; Pulmonary Ventilation; Respiration; Respiratory Rate; Spirometry - instrumentation; Spirometry - methods
• ISSN: 1094-687X; 1557-170X
• DOI: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7320213

Respiratory disorders are a very common and growing health problem. Signal waveforms of respiratory airflow and volume may indicate pathological signs of several diseases and, thus, it would be important to measure them accurately. Currently, devices used in respiration measurements are mostly obtrusive in nature interfering with the natural respiration patterns. We used a depth camera for the continuous measurement of respiratory function without contact on a subject. We propose a novel calibration method which enables accurate estimates of the respiratory airflow waveforms from the depth camera data. Eight subjects were measured with the depth camera and spirometer at the same time using different breathing styles. Results show that not only the respiratory volume and respiratory rate (RR) can be computed precisely from the estimated respiratory airflow, but also the respiratory airflow waveforms are very accurate. This offers interesting opportunities, e.g. in pulmonary and critical care medicine, when objective measurements are required.