Ambulatory monitoring of respiratory effort using a clothing-adhered biosensor

Abstract— Accurate ambulatory sensing of patterns of respiratory effort has long eluded biomedical researchers. Though the data would inform clinical decision-making, the lack of sensors suitable for such data collection stymies clinical impact. This study describes an approach to sensing respiratory effort via thoracic and/or abdominal excursion in a form that affords longitudinal and continuous adherence. This approach leverages force-based sensors embedded in a clothing-adhered form factor to reduce user inconveniences. The primary benefit of this approach is user acceptance: it can monitor data longitudinally while addressing impactful user inconvenience issues with existing devices. Compared to a ground truth monitor of respiratory effort, and across both cognitive and physical tasks, the present approach resulted in a relative median error of 6.8% and mean absolute error of 1.8 breaths per min (SD=0.14). Sensor location affected performance, with chest-worn sensors outperforming waist-worn sensors. A more granular analysis of temporal markers of the respiratory cycle showed high agreement with ground truth; end-of-expiration temporal markers exhibited the least precision. The results indicate that this approach can be used to monitor respiratory effort accurately and theoretically with high adherence.

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Full article available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8438678