Vital Signs [Tutorial]

The vital sign of breathing rate can be measured in many ways, ranging from simply counting the number of breaths observed over a minute to electronic devices that can give quantitative results through detecting individual breaths and determining the instantaneous breathing rate from the time interval between adjacent breaths. These latter kinds of breath sensors can be used for continuous monitoring of patients to detect specific breathing patterns or apneas and sound an alarm when specific undesirable patterns are seen. Biomedical engineers have a range of techniques that can be used in the design of breathing sensors, and it is important to understand the specific application so that the appropriate instrumentation can be designed without either over- or under-designing the device.