Publications

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder that affects mainly the adult and elderly population. Due to the high percentage of patients who remain undiagnosed and untreated because of limitations of current diagnosis methods, the management of OSA is an important social, scientific and economic problem that will be difficult to be assumed by health systems. On the other hand, smartphone platforms (mHealth systems) are being considered as an innovative solution, thanks to the integration of the essential sensors to obtain clinically relevant parameters in the same device or in combination with wireless wearable devices.

JTD Keywords: Sleep apnea, Microphones, Monitoring, Sensors, Accelerometers, Biomedical monitoring, Band-pass filters

Wireless sensors are an emerging technology that allows to assist physicians in the monitoring of patients health status. This approach can be used for the non-invasive recording of the electrical respiratory muscle activity of the diaphragm (EMGdi). In this work, we acquired the EMGdi signal of a healthy subject performing an inspiratory load test. To this end, the EMGdi activity was captured from a single channel of electromyography using a wireless platform which was compared with the EMGdi and the inspiratory mouth pressure (Pmouth) recorded with a conventional lab equipment. From the EMGdi signal we were able to evaluate the neural respiratory drive, a biomarker used for assessing the respiratory muscle function. In addition, we evaluated the breathing movement and the cardiac activity, estimating two cardio-respiratory parameters: the respiratory rate and the heart rate. The correlation between the two EMGdi signals and the Pmouth improved with increasing the respiratory load (Pearson's correlation coefficient ranges from 0.33 to 0.85). The neural respiratory drive estimated from both EMGdi signals showed a positive trend with an increase of the inspiratory load and being higher in the conventional EMGdi recording. The respiratory rate comparison between measurements revealed similar values of around 16 breaths per minute. The heart rate comparison showed a root mean error of less than 0.2 beats per minute which increased when incrementing the inspiratory load. In summary, this preliminary work explores the use of wireless devices to record the muscle respiratory activity to derive several physiological parameters. Its use can be an alternative to conventional measuring systems with the advantage of being portable, lightweight, flexible and operating at low energy. This technology can be attractive for medical staff and may have a positive impact in the way healthcare is being delivered.

JTD Keywords: Biomedical monitoring, Electrodes, Medical services, Monitoring, Muscles, Wireless communication, Wireless sensor networks

An automatic gait initialization strategy based on user intention sensing in the context of rehabilitation with a lower-limb wearable robot is proposed and evaluated. The proposed strategy involves monitoring the human-orthosis interaction torques and initial position deviation to determine the gait initiation instant and to modify orthosis operation for gait assistance, when needed. During gait, the compliant control algorithm relies on the adaptation of the joints' stiffness in function of their interaction torques and their deviation from the desired trajectories, while maintaining the dynamic stability. As a reference input, the average of a set of recorded gaits obtained from healthy subjects is used. The algorithm has been tested with five healthy subjects showing its efficient behavior in initiating the gait and maintaining the equilibrium while walking in presence of external forces. The work is performed as a preliminary study to assist patients suffering from incomplete Spinal cord injury and Stroke.

JTD Keywords: Biomedical monitoring, Exoskeletons, Joints, Knee, Legged locomotion, Trajectory, Exoskeleton, adaptive control, gait assistance, gait initiation, rehabilitation, wearable robot

Among the most common sleep disorders are those related to disruptions in airflow (apnea) or reductions in the breath amplitude (hypopnea) with or without obstruction of the upper airway (UA). One of the most important sleep disorders is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). This sleep-disordered breathing, quantified by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), can produce a significant reduction of oxygen saturation and an abnormal elevation of carbon dioxide levels in the blood. Apnea and hypopnea episodes are associated with arousals and sleep fragmentation during the night and compensatory response of the autonomic nervous system.

JTD Keywords: Biomedical engineering, Biomedical measurements, Biomedical monitoring, Breathing disorders, Medical conditions, Medical treatment, Sleep, Sleep apnea