Science Blog

Severe respiratory disease is one of the leading causes of infant illness and death worldwide. There is a significant upward trend of clinical infant respiratory studies, including the investigation into respiratory success in ventilated infants, SIDS, and neurological disorders that affect the normal respiratory pattern. In this article, we discuss how noninvasive respiratory monitoring and VivoSense^® software helps researchers collect and analyze respiratory data for clinical studies focused on infant and neo-natal breathing patterns.

The pace, pressures, work-life balance, and emotional aspects of a physician’s job put them at risk for burnout. A study by the American Medical Association and Mayo Clinic found that burnout rates were particularly increased for specialty practitioners. Drs. Nicholas Slamon and Rob Parker, pediatric ICU physicians at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE, used VivoSense^® and real-time biometrics of physician stress to study its effects on the care of pediatric patients.

San Diego State University’s Clinical Psychology research group and the Drexel University WELL Center joined forces using VivoSense^® to investigate Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and its link to obesity, binge eating, and loss of control while eating. Specifically, the study examined the association between HRV and binge eating and change in HRV from a resting to a stressed task as a potential marker of emotional regulation capacity in obese individuals.

Here’s an example of how a clinical research team studying stuttering respiratory patterns and other biosignals used VivoSense® software to integrate a multitude of wearable physiological sensor data, manage signal artifacts and produce robust data analysis.

VivoSense continues to lead the way in infant respiratory analysis.

Orange County, CA, February, 2017 – Washington University School of Medicine, and St Louis Children’s Hospital with funding from the NIH Prematurity and Respiratory Outcomes Project (PROP) https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01435187 have published early research findings. The primary goal of the PROP study was to identify biomarkers and clinical variables in premature infants that would potentially predict pulmonary status up to one year later.

Respiratory insufficiency in post-operative patients following opioid analgesia is a common and life threatening problem. The efficacy of a candidate drug intended to increase minute ventilation by increasing tidal volume and secondarily through increasing respiratory rate (RR) was investigated in a clinical trial. Respiratory ventilation data were collected over several hours using Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography (RIP) using the Nox-T3 device. VivoSense provided custom routines for integration with sedation drug infusion and calibration against pneumotach data. Subjects were awake for several hours of monitoring, including periods of clinical assessments. VivoSense provided objective artifact management and assessments of key respiratory outcome measures.

UC San Diego researchers investigated whether reduced heart rate variability (HRV) before combat deployment conferred increased risk of a PTSD diagnosis after deployment. HRV from 1500 Marines were measured before combat deployment and again 4-6 months post deployment. The study found that U.S. Marines with reduced HRV prior to deployment displayed increased vulnerability to PTSD upon return, suggesting that a low HRV is a risk factor for developing PTSD.

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a neurodevelopmental disease that results in neurological symptoms involving respiratory dysfunction. Breathing abnormalities are essential criteria for the diagnosis of RTT and include erratic respiratory rhythms and life threatening apneas. These respiratory symptoms are more severe during wakefulness than sleep.

Infants with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) develop respiratory insufficiency due to progressive respiratory muscle weakness caused by degeneration of alpha motor neurons in the spinal cord. This weakness results in ineffective airway clearance (obstruction), which is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in infants with SMA. Thus, measurement of longitudinal changes in respiratory muscle function in infants and young children with SMA-1 is critical to the evaluation of interventions targeting SMA-1.