Breathing Chest Wall Kinematics Assessment through a Single Digital Camera: A Feasibility Study

Abstract

The identification of respiratory patterns based on the movement of the chest wall can assist in monitoring an individual’s health status, particularly those with neuromuscular disorders, such as hemiplegia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Thoraco-abdominal asynchrony (TAA) refers to the lack of coordination between the rib cage and abdominal movements, characterized by a time delay in their expansion. Motion capture systems, like optoelectronic plethysmography (OEP), are commonly employed to assess these asynchronous movements. However, alternative technologies able to capture chest wall movements without physical contact, such as RGB digital cameras and time-of-flight digital cameras, can also be utilized due to their accessibility, affordability, and non-invasive nature. This study explores the possibility of using a single RGB digital camera to record the kinematics of the thoracic and abdominal regions by placing four non-reflective markers on the torso. In order to choose the positions of these markers, we previously investigated the movements of 89 chest wall landmarks using OEP. Laboratory tests and volunteer experiments were conducted to assess the viability of the proposed system in capturing the kinematics of the chest wall and estimating various time-related respiratory parameters (i.e., fR, Ti, Te, and Ttot) as well as TAA indexes. The results demonstrate a high level of agreement between the detected chest wall kinematics and the reference data. Furthermore, the system shows promising potential in estimating time-related respiratory parameters and identifying phase shifts indicative of TAA, thus suggesting its feasibility in detecting abnormal chest wall movements without physical contact with a single RGB camera.