Real-time monitoring of respiratory diseases of distantly located elderly impaired patients

Abstract

This paper presents a cost effective on-line ventilation monitoring system for impaired elderly persons using optical wireless sensory system. In this work, we have tried to develop this system especially for aged physically disabled people by introducing a cordless optics based sensing system as a secondary transducer which carries many distinctive features like i) no electrical signal is directly connected with the subject's body, thus providing a shock hazard free module, ii) any hardware interfacing circuit (for computer compatible signal) not required which again minimizes complex circuitry and finally generates iii) a noise free computer friendly output. The processor analyses the signal and communicates information to the distantly located physicians through blue tooth technology. Here, we have developed an algorithm which monitors important spirometric values such as Forced Expiratory Volume of air in first one second (FEV1), Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and PeakExpiratory Flow (PEF) continuously, so that any deviation from the safe limits will allow the system to send a warning sign to the physician's mobile and at the same time it will send numerical and graphical respiratory information of the subject to the webserver. Our study is limited to two common respiratory diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and chronic restrictive pulmonary disease (CRPD). We have studied the respiratory activities of 50 male impaired elderly persons. The sent information through the wireless technology using telemetering platform was in very close agreement with the actual clinical conditions.

Using Mobiles to Monitor Respiratory Diseases

“…Ref. [20] developed an algorithm that continuously monitors important spirometric values such as FEV1, FVC, and PEF, so that any deviation from the safe limits will allow the system to simultaneously send a warning message to the physician's mobile and numerical and graphical respiratory information of the subject to the web-server. The study was limited to chronic COPD and chronic restrictive pulmonary disease (CRPD).…”