A Vision-Based Passive Airway Resistance Estimation

Obstructive respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchiolitis are the leading cause of hospitalization in infants and young children. In these diseases, expiratory flows are significantly reduced due to the high resistance in the patient’s airway passages. A quantitative method for measuring airway resistance would have huge value in the treatment and follow-up of children with reactive airway diseases. Our goals in this research were: (1) Creating a mathematical model of airway resistance that links resistance to chest volume as a function of time; (2) Making adjustment to the model to accommodate the differences in physiology by conducting experiments on young children with obstructive breathing problems; (3) Developing a prototype of a simple and easy to use medical device that provides a quantitative measure for airway resistance in term of an Obstructive Severity Index and can be used in-home settings.

Selected Publication:

• “A Passive Quantitative Measurement of Airway Resistance using Depth Data”, EMBC, 2014.
• “A Vision-Based Respiration Monitoring System for Passive Airway Resistance Estimation,” TBME, 2016.