Measurement of respiratory changes in palliative care

Breathing patterns are useful clinical parameters that may have more potential than is currently realized for palliative care patients. However, continuous respiratory monitoring is not feasible or appropriate, given the goals of end-of-life care. Recent advances in unobtrusive sensing could allow palliative care patients to be monitored from their bed. A pressure sensor array was placed into the beds of two palliative care patients in a palliative care ward and four healthy participants at home. A number of common disordered breathing patterns were identified from the extracted respiratory signals of the palliative care patients. Trends in a proposed index of respiratory amplitude and interval disturbance (RAID) uncovered periods of respiratory disturbance for the palliative care participants as well as the healthy participants. This study demonstrates that bed-based respiratory monitoring of palliative care patients is feasible in both hospice and home settings.