By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    bowl of vegetable salad
    Raw Foods: benefits and harms
    November 9, 2021
    pros and cons of the keto diet
    Read This Before You Follow the Keto Diet
    May 18, 2022
    spinal cord injuries
    4 Potential Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries (and How to Seek Compensation)
    May 25, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    4 Reasons Why Medical Device Compliance Matters
    May 22, 2020
    What To Know About The Importance Of Healthcare Marketing
    November 23, 2019
    healthcare courses
    6 Supplemental Courses in Healthcare to Support Your HR Degree
    August 20, 2021
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Finally, a Respiratory Monitor for Everybody
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Wellness > Home Health > Finally, a Respiratory Monitor for Everybody
DiagnosticseHealthHome HealthMedical DevicesMedical InnovationsTechnologyWellness

Finally, a Respiratory Monitor for Everybody

Dov Michaeli
Last updated: September 10, 2013 8:11 am
Dov Michaeli
Share
10 Min Read
Respiratory Centers of the Medulla and Pons
SHARE

Have you ever wondered why is it that we can determine heart rate by simply placing a finger over the pulsing radial artery; or determine our blood pressure using a blood-pressure cuff; or even determine our O2 saturation using a pulse oxymeter; but we can’t easily obtain the information hidden in our breathing? The simple answer is that teasing out this information is just too difficult. Or, I should say, was too difficult. So, let’s drill a bit deeper into all those measurements.

What’s in a number?

Have you ever wondered why is it that we can determine heart rate by simply placing a finger over the pulsing radial artery; or determine our blood pressure using a blood-pressure cuff; or even determine our O2 saturation using a pulse oxymeter; but we can’t easily obtain the information hidden in our breathing? The simple answer is that teasing out this information is just too difficult. Or, I should say, was too difficult. So, let’s drill a bit deeper into all those measurements.

What’s in a number?

More Read

Image
Discovering the Value of Twitter at HIMSS 2013
Meditation Before Bed: How it Works
Data De-Identification – An Easier Way to HIPAA-Compliance
The Power of Simplicity in mHealth
Mobile Health Holds Promise for Improving Care of Homeless Patients

Because we can measure blood pressure so easily doesn’t mean that it is simple. The major factor in determining blood pressure is cardiac output; obvious, except that output in turn is determined by the stroke volume and heart rate, which in turn depends on… you get the idea: blood pressure is a composite of many physiological parameters. Yet we are content in measuring the integrated value of all those variables as expressed by the familiar numbers of systolic and diastolic Blood Pressure expressed in mm Hg. And the most powerful and physiologically relevant “computer” doing the complex calculations is none other than your brain, specifically the part of the brain stem called the medulla oblongata. 

The medulla is part of the most ancient part of the brain, found in lowly animals such as reptiles. But ancient doesn’t mean primitive. This part of the brain is responsible for the most essential functions of life, also called the vegetative functions. And because it is so essential to life, it is as fail-safe and tightly regulated as biologically possible.

Respiratory Control

Respiratory Centers of the Medulla and Pons

Respiratory Centers of the Medulla and Pons (photo from cssforum.com)

Respiration is controlled by 4 centers, 2 in the medulla, and 2 in the pons, which sits on top of the medulla.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the functions regulated by each of those centers, suffice it to say that they get signals from the blood, primarily in the form of pH. But that in turn depends on the concentration of blood CO2, and that in turn depends on the rate and volume of inspiration and exhalation, as well as on the metabolic status of of the body; for instance, vigorous exercise raises the level of lactic acid, which gets converted to CO2. In addition, there are hormonal influences on the respiratory centers. When we are anxious, or stressed, epinephrine (aka adrenalin) levels go up and increase the ventilatory rate so as to supply more oxygen to the working muscles. These are all involuntary influences. There are also voluntary ones. For instance, doing yoga correctly calls for  slower and deeper breathing. Several studies documented the influence of such a voluntary pattern on the brain: it causes the appearance of theta waves, which are characteristic of deep relaxation and sleep states.

The main point here is that the breathing pattern is a product of complex interactions integrated by the the brain. The problem is that although we may know many of the factors that influence breathing, we don’t know them all. Just recently, a new group of neurons, discovered in the thalamus, were shown to send signals to the respiratory centers. So how can we integrate all those factors, known and unknown, into “a number”, a lá blood pressure? The simple answer is that we can’t. What the brain does so rapidly and reliably no computer can do.

An ingenious solution

Biometric Headset

BreathAcoustics All-in-One Biometric Headset

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Nirinjan Yee, founder and President of BreathReserch Inc. She recently approached Health Tech Hatch for help in her campaign to crowdfund the development of her new device, the BreathAcoustics All-in-One Biometric Headset that, for the first time, captures respiratory parameters based on recordings of breath acoustics.

Her approach is quite ingenious: rather than laboriously classifying breathing patterns by observation and verbal description (inherently imprecise) she recorded the inhalation/exhalation sounds.

What immediately jumps to mind are the early days of blood pressure determinations. Until the early 1900s American physicians estimated BP by placing a finger on the radial artery. BP was estimated by describing radial pulses as ‘bounding’, ‘normal’, ‘weak’, ‘thready’. When the blood pressure cuff reached our shores from Europe, measuring blood pressure by sound (called auscultation) became more precise and accessible to nurses.

Unsurprisingly, there was resistance to adopting the method. A variety of reasons were offered: ‘not precise enough’, ‘variability of values from day to day’, ‘I’ve used my finger to assess pulses since I started in practice of Medicine, and nothing ever went wrong’. One reason was really striking: we cannot relinquish such an important measurement to a nurse (those were the days when it was Kosher to write it in medical journals).

Does it make sense to record breath sounds? Of course. The sound is related to the duration of the inhalation/exhalation cycle, to the force of respiration, to the pitch of the respiratory sounds, and to adventitious sounds, such as wheezing, sighing, etc. These parameters are invaluable in the diagnoses of a variety of clinical conditions. For example, the pitch, volume, and location in the respiratory cycle of bronchial asthma is different than the bronchiolar wheezes associated with lung disease. Indeed, Breath Research has amassed a database of over 10,000 recordings, including some patients with congestive heart failure, COPD, asthma, post-surgical, athletes at rest and in training, yoga practitioners, patients suffering from sleep apnea, to name a few. Obviously, to get a reliable sound-print of various conditions, both normal and pathological, a massive number of recordings will have to be collected and analyzed. But there are already promising beginnings. The group at the Dept. of Exercise and Sports Science, University of Wisconsin -La Crosse, tested the device on 20 healthy volunteers. The test consisted of 2 incremental maximal cycle ergometer exercise tests.  Breath sounds analysis was obtained from a microphone in the  breathing valve, using proprietary software, and included respiratory rate and sound intensity. Here are the conclusions of the study, presented at the American College of Sports Medicine:

The conceptually simple BSA (Breath Sounds Analysis) appears to be a viable surrogate for direct measurement of VT (Ventilatory Threshold) and RCT (Respiratory Compensation Threshold)  using RGE (Respiratory Gas Exchange).  These are standard parameters used in exercise testing.

A small study at the Sleep Lab at John Muir Medical Center in the San Francisco Bay Area consisted of simultaneous recordings of breath sounds using the BreathAcousics headset and the Phillips Respironics Air Pressure Monitor. The results of the recordings showed  impressive correlations between the two methods varying from 95.8% to 98.7%. Another impressive comparison is the cost of equipment: the Phillips Respironics cost thousands of dollars, the BreathAcoustics -a couple of hundred. The Phillips equipment can be used in sleep labs only, the breathAcoustics is completely mobile and can be used anywhere, anytime.

If I sound enthusiastic, perhaps overly so, it is because I sense that this simple gizmo will revolutionize the way we correlate respiration in all its manifestations with wellness and with disease states. It contains, in addition to the microphone recording breath sounds, a heart rate sensor and a pulse oximeter sensor. What’s there not to like?

Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in the company. I contributed to the BreathResearch crowds-funding campaign. My wife, Dr. Pat Salber, is CEO of HealthTechHatch.

TAGGED:BreathAcoustics All-in-One Biometric Headset
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Do You Grind Your Teeth at Night? Here’s How Night Guards and TMJ Treatments Can Help
Do You Grind Your Teeth at Night? Here’s How Night Guards and TMJ Treatments Can Help
Dental health
May 21, 2025
The Secret To A Confident Smile: Top Tips For Better Teeth
The Secret To A Confident Smile: Top Tips For Better Teeth
Dental health
May 21, 2025
Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025

You Might also Like

Positive Client Survey Results for a Russian Maternal mHealth Program

January 23, 2014

Miramar Labs lands $35.8 Million Funding for Armpit Sweat Treatment

June 9, 2011
Artificial IntelligenceTechnology

4 Problems With AI For Healthcare, And How To Deal With Them

February 13, 2019

Medical Device Approval Process is Faulted in Study

March 22, 2011
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?