The Use of Wearable Technology to Acquire Signals for COPD Research

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a respiratory condition which affects approximately 3 million people in the UK and 210 million worldwide. The disease is characterized by progressive air flow obstruction and decline of lung function. COPD is currently the fourth leading cause of death in the world. The main reason for hospitalisations associated with COPD is exacerbations (chest infections or a worsening of the underlying symptoms). Severe COPD exacerbations are the second largest cause of emergency admissions in the UK. Mild and moderate exacerbations can be managed in the community but if they are not identified promptly they may progress to breathlessness and in some patients to respiratory failure. Thus, finding modalities for early detection and diagnosis of exacerbations is clearly a priority for current and future COPD research. However, these still do not exist. The aim of this study will be to acquire acoustic respiratory signals from COPD patients with a small wearable device. These signals will be subsequently used to carry out engineering research with the objective of trying to find "fingerprints" in them which could be early indicators of disease exacerbations. If those "fingerprints" were found, subsequent research could focus on trying to create software methods which, together with the use of a small wearable device, would aim at automatically detecting exacerbations when they are at very early stages- prior to the symptoms being evident to the patient- so that clinical intervention could be triggered, in order to optimize the disease outcomes.