Structured Light Plethysmography in Obstructive Airways Disease

Obstructive airways disease is the most common group of acute illnesses leading to hospital treatment in children. This group consists of different age-related diagnoses, such as bronchiolitis in infants or wheezing and asthma in older children. Though these entities overlap with each other, they have common characteristics and the same leading symptom breathing distress. The investigators aim conduct an observational cohort study to examine if the clinical course of respiratory distress be quantified and the treatment improved in children with acute breathing difficulty using a new non-touch non-invasive SLP measurement device? Thora3Di is a new CE- and FDA-approved medical device able to measure chest and abdominal wall movements during tidal breathing with a method called structured light plethysmography (SLP). The method is non-touch and non- invasive, it does not need any connection with the child. One-month- to 12-years-old infants and children are recruited from the paediatric wards at Evelina London Children's hospital. The child lies or sits within the field of vision of the SLP device with their chest and abdomen exposed. A grid pattern of normal light will be projected onto the chest and changes in the format of the grid as the infant or child breathes will be recorded by the SLP device. Data will be collected for each child for 3-5 minutes once in 24 hour periods for 2-10 times during hospital stay. The aim is to reduce duration of hospital stay by finding predicting parameters for obstructive airways diseases with the new SLP method, and further aim to standardization of treatment strategies, to reduce expenditure.