Temperature profile of nasal breathing for respiration monitoring in
ambulatory settings
Abstract
The nasal breathing parameters have shown promising applications in
hyperventilation, Kussmaul breathing, sleep apnea, shortness of breath
in COVID-19, bradypnea, sinus arrhythmia, and breathing pranayama.
However, a wearable setup, which is affordable, aesthetic, and accurate
in real-time during various physical activities, is not available
currently. The present work develops a novel, low-cost and wearable
instrumented Nasal Temperature Sensing (NTS) device for measuring
various breathing parameters. The proposed device was tested during
controlled breathing exercises in seated position at three ambient
temperature settings (18°C, 28°C, and 38°C). The device was further
tested for standing and walking at various speeds including slow (1.5
Km/hr), medium (3.5 Km/hr), and fast (5.5 Km/hr). The NTS device is
compared against a commercially available respiration belt (gold
standard). The mean absolute error (averaged across subjects and ambient
temperature settings) was 0.09±0.05 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.17±0.10
bpm, and 0.13±0.13 bpm for controlled breathing at 6 bpm, 12 bpm, and 18
bpm, respectively. The Root-mean-square error between the NTS device and
respiration belt across the subjects at the normal standing-position was
1.13±0.39 bpm. The results suggest that the proposed NTS device is
accurate for real-time applications with the potential advantage of
being robust enough to motion artifacts.