Electrocardiogram Derived Respiratory Rate Using a Wearable Armband

A method for deriving respiratory rate from an armband, which records three-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) using three pairs of dry (no hydrogel) electrodes, is presented. The armband device especially convenient long-term (months-years) monitoring because it does not use obstructive leads nor hydrogels/adhesives, cause skin irritation even after few days. An ECG-derived respiration (EDR) based on respiration-related modulation QRS slopes and R-wave angle approach was used. Moreover, we modified the EDR algorithm to lower computational cost. Respiratory rates were estimated with armband-ECG reference plethysmography-based signals 15 subjects who underwent breathing experiment consisting five stages controlled (at 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 Hz) one stage spontaneous breathing. obtained a relative error respect (respiratory signal) that higher than 2.26% in median interquartile range (IQR) all fixed breathing, 3.57% IQR case when low cost applied. These results demonstrate ECG morphology are also present device. Furthermore, these suggest can be exploited by angles obtain rate, may have wide applications including patients chronic diseases, epileptic seizures detection, stress assessment, sleep studies, among others.