A telemedicine instrument for home monitoring of patients with chronic respiratory diseases.

We developed a telemedicine instrument for home monitoring of subjects with respiratory diseases. The instrument directly measures blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate, but the most relevant aspect is that it also acts as digital recorder of parameters coming from several external instruments (spirometer, capnometer, NIBP device, etc.). It also connects to all pulmonary ventilators. The instrument main board includes five slots, which are used to insert the measuring boards (saturation and ventilation boards) and the interface boards (connecting the external instruments). Depending on patient's needs, only the proper measuring/interface boards are mounted, thus allowing maximum flexibility and cost saving. The instrument has several I/O units, and especially an internal modem for direct connection to the Internet through TCP/IP protocol. The instrument was extensively tested, and preliminary trials were performed over fifteen patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.