Remote Doppler System to Measure Heart Rate and Breathing Pattern

Currently, medical professionals obtain respiratory rate for vital signs assessments either by counting the number of breaths during a 15, 30, or 60 second interval and multiplying to obtain breaths per minute, or by reading the respiratory rate off of a multiparameter vital signs monitor (such as a Welch Allyn Propaq Monitor), that provides respiratory effort information based on the change of AC impedance through ECG leads. The Respiration channel (RESP) of the Welch Allyn Propaq is intended to detect the rate or absence of respiratory effort, deriving the signal by measuring the AC impedance between the selected terminals of the ECG electrodes. The RSpot 100 Non-Contact Respiratory Rate Spot Check provides an alternative to the medical professional counting respiratory rate or reading the rate from a vital signs monitor designed for continuous respiratory rate monitoring. The Kai Sensors RSpot 100 Non-Contact Respiratory Rate Spot Check is used for a one-time measurement of respiratory rate as part of a vital signs assessment in the hospital or other clinical settings.

In this study, the RSpot is operated simultaneously with two other systems that provide a respiratory rate: Welch Allyn Propaq Encore model 242 and Embletta system with Universal XactTrace and Somnologica software. A respiratory rate is also obtained by counting respiratory excursions for the same duration as the RSpot measurement interval, 15, 30, or 60 seconds. The rates obtained from each of the four measurement methods are then compared.