Monitoring respiration in wheezy preschool children by pulse oximetry plethysmogram analysis

The aim of this study was to investigate whether respiratory information can be derived from pulse oximetry plethysmogram (pleth) recordings in acutely wheezy preschool children. A digital pulse oximeter was connected via ‘Bluetooth’ to a notebook computer in order to acquire pleth data. Low pass filtering and frequency analysis were used to derive respiratory rate from the pleth trace; the ratio of heart rate to respiratory rate (HR/RR) was also calculated. Recordings were obtained during acute wheezy episodes in 18 children of median age 31 months and follow-up recordings from 16 of the children were obtained when they were wheeze-free. For the acutely wheezy children, frequency analysis of the pleth waveform was within 10 breaths/min of clinical assessment in 25 of 29 recordings in 15 children. For the follow-up measurements, frequency analysis of the pleth waveform showed similarly good agreement in recordings on 15 of the 16 children. Respiratory rate was higher (p < 0.001), and HR/RR ratio was lower (p = 0.03) during acute wheeze than at follow-up. This study suggests that respiratory rate can be derived from pleth traces in wheezy preschool children.