IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2021 Jan;68(1):298-307. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2020.2998009. Epub 2020 Dec 21.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is one of the most common chronic conditions. The current assessment of COPD requires a maximal maneuver during a spirometry test to quantify airflow limitations of patients. Other less invasive measurements such as thoracic bioimpedance and myographic signals have been studied as an alternative to classical methods as they provide information about respiration. Particularly, strong correlations have been shown between thoracic bioimpedance and respiratory volume. The main objective of this study is to investigate bioimpedance and its combination with myographic parameters in COPD patients to assess the applicability in respiratory disease monitoring. We measured bioimpedance, surface electromyography and surface mechanomyography in forty-three COPD patients during an incremental inspiratory threshold loading protocol. We introduced two novel features that can be used to assess COPD condition derived from the variation of bioimpedance and the electrical and mechanical activity during each respiratory cycle. These features demonstrate significant differences between mild and severe patients, indicating a lower inspiratory contribution of the inspiratory muscles to global respiratory ventilation in the severest COPD patients. In conclusion, the combination of bioimpedance and myographic signals provides useful indices to noninvasively assess the breathing of COPD patients.
慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）是最常见的慢性疾病之一。目前对 COPD 的评估需要在肺活量测定试验中进行最大用力，以量化患者的气流受限情况。其他非侵入性测量方法，如胸部生物阻抗和肌电图信号，已被研究作为替代经典方法的方法，因为它们提供了关于呼吸的信息。特别是，已经显示出胸部生物阻抗与呼吸量之间存在很强的相关性。本研究的主要目的是研究 COPD 患者的生物阻抗及其与肌电图参数的组合，以评估其在呼吸疾病监测中的适用性。我们在递增吸气阈负荷方案中测量了 43 例 COPD 患者的生物阻抗、表面肌电图和表面肌振图。我们引入了两个新的特征，可以用于评估 COPD 患者的状况，这些特征来自于每个呼吸周期中生物阻抗和电活动的变化。这些特征表明轻度和重度患者之间存在显著差异，表明在最严重的 COPD 患者中，吸气肌对全球呼吸通气的吸气贡献较低。总之，生物阻抗和肌电图信号的组合提供了有用的指标，可以无创地评估 COPD 患者的呼吸情况。
