Introduction

Respirhò is a wearable device for non-invasive and continuous monitoring of the respiratory rate. The system is based on inertial sensors allowing the remote control of fundamental temporal respiratory parameters: therefore, it can be used not only in hospital, but also at home or during normal daily activities as a real “holter” for breath monitoring.

Technical features

The system is based on IMU inertial sensors with 9 degrees of freedom (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer). The grater innovation concerns the modularity of the system that includes three inertial units. Two of them are positioned on the abdomen and thorax to record the movements of the thoracic-abdominal wall, the third unit is placed on a part of the trunk not subject to respiratory movements and serves as a reference. The data collected by the units are sent via wireless to a PC, smartphone or tablet that allows you to manage the acquisitions (start / stop acquisition, selection of the acquisition mode, etc.), to save the data, process them, using a specially implemented algorithm, and display them, thus allowing the doctor to monitor the patient even remotely.

RespirHò  is particularly dedicated to patients suffering from COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) which are more than 250 million worldwide and which, according to the World Health Organization, will increase by 30% in the next ten years. It is estimated that continuous and home monitoring of patients suffering from chronic diseases such as COPD can reduce emergency hospital admissions by 20%, mortality by 45% and costs per patient paid by the National Health Service up to 8%.

Possible Applications

• Biomedical field;
• Monitoring of vital parameters;
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease;
• Remote monitoring at home;
• Sport: measurement of the respiratory rate during physical activity.

Advantages

• The respiratory component of the signal is not affected by the extra-respiratory component (due to patience movements, walking, etc.);
• The two units, on chest and abdomen, take into account the complex nature of the thoraco-abdominal wall.
• Correlation between respiratory rate and physical activity.