Abstract
Respiration is a complex biomechanical act involving different organs such as lungs and ribcage which is a complex system of bones and muscles. Respiratory monitoring is aimed for diagnostic purposes to assess respiratory efficiency with coordinated organs and thoracic structure movements. This paper presents a new device and a procedure for monitoring the movement of the rib cage of a person by analyzing the motion of a rib in order to determine the main characteristics of the thoracic movement that are related to the respiratory act in determining the expansion of the pulmonary organs. In particular, the design of an innovative device is presented for long-term monitoring following previous experiences with a non-invasive and easy-to-apply small device. Using a prototype of the Respirholter device, an experimentation campaign was carried out to characterize the use of the device and its efficiency as well as for a validation in diagnostic aspects on good-health volunteers. Illustrative results are reported that demonstrate the convenience of the designed device and the usefulness of the acquired data for a diagnostic characterization of respiration.
