Neonatal non-contact respiratory monitoring based on
real-time infrared thermography.
Source
Philips Chair for Medical
Information Technology, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr, 20, 52074 Aachen,
Germany. abbas@hia.rwth-aachen.de
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Monitoring of vital parameters is an
important topic in neonatal daily care. Progress in computational intelligence
and medical sensors has facilitated the development of smart bedside monitors
that can integrate multiple parameters into a single monitoring system. This
paper describes non-contact monitoring of neonatal vital signals based on
infrared thermography as a new biomedical engineering application. One signal
of clinical interest is the spontaneous respiration rate of the neonate. It
will be shown that the respiration rate of neonates can be monitored based on
analysis of the anterior naris (nostrils) temperature profile associated with
the inspiration and expiration phases successively.
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study is to develop
and investigate a new non-contact respiration monitoring modality for neonatal
intensive care unit (NICU) using infrared thermography imaging. This
development includes subsequent image processing (region of interest (ROI)
detection) and optimization. Moreover, it includes further optimization of this
non-contact respiration monitoring to be considered as physiological measurement
inside NICU wards.
RESULTS:
Continuous wavelet transformation
based on Debauches wavelet function was applied to detect the breathing signal
within an image stream. Respiration was successfully monitored based on a 0.3°C
to 0.5°C temperature difference between the inspiration and expiration phases.
CONCLUSIONS:
Although this method has been
applied to adults before, this is the first time it was used in a newborn
infant population inside the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The promising
results suggest to include this technology into advanced NICU monitors.
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