Design of Monitoring System for Respiratory Diagnosis

Respiration is an important vital sign which can help in the indication of human’s health status. Sleep apnea, which is defined as a cessation of breathing while sleeping, is recognized as a common and critical popular health problem. By monitoring the patient’s respiration rate, sleep apnea can be diagnosed. The received signal from the patient, which is a variation in temperature, is converted into a variation in voltage and then the respiration rate can be calculated. A portable device is proposed that can continuously monitor the breathing rhythm in a manner which is fast, safe and costly effective. The system consists of a nasal-oral thermistor that is mounted inside a nebulizer mask for detecting the irregular respiratory interruption and providing audible and visual alarms when this interrupt indicates an apnea event. Otherwise, if an out-of-range value occurred the alarm also will be initiated. Thus, the device will contribute to reducing the death associated with sleep apnea.