Wearable sensor monitors breathing for signs of illness

Set for clinical trials, it is hoped that the device – thought to be the first of its kind – can be used in healthcare settings and in the home to provide an early warning for declining health.

The work was led by Nottingham Trent University, Southampton University and University Hospital Southampton, and involved med-tech company Zelemiq Ltd. Their work is detailed in Sensors. The project was funded with almost £1m from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and is being advanced within the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.

Changes in breathing rate can often be the first sign of patient deterioration in several diseases, including sepsis and COVID-19.

Common chronic respiratory diseases, including asthma, sleep apnoea, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, currently affect more than 435 million people globally.

Consequently, there has been a push to develop methods for non-invasively and efficiently measuring respiratory rate, along with having a medically acceptable accuracy.

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The Pneumorator contains a series of functional layers and works by measuring the frequency variation of the sensor caused by breathing, allowing for the accurate detection of subtle variations due to chest expansion or changes in lung composition. The team said the sensor also works when not in direct contact with the skin.

“During breathing the chest moves and the lungs inflate and deflate, causing dielectric variation. These changes can then be detected by the sensor in our device, which is powered by batteries,” said Dr Yang Wei, an expert in electronic textiles and electronic engineering in Nottingham Trent University’s Medical Technologies Innovation Facility.

He continued: “The ability to continuously measure respiration in this way gives us the potential to enable faster, more effective treatment, significantly enhancing patient outcomes and operational efficiency within the health service.”

In use the Pneumorator would be wirelessly interfaced to display data onto a dedicated smartphone or tablet app for the healthcare team to use as an early warning system.

As part of the study the device was capable of continuously measuring the respiratory rate of volunteers within an accuracy of two breaths per minute.

The researchers added that the device, which is low cost and mass manufacturable, will now be further validated through a clinical trial at University Hospital Southampton with the aim achieving regulatory approval within the NHS.