Breathing as user interface for pulmonary rehabilitation : respiration tracking using the Wii remote controller

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Respiration exercises are an important part of the pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients. Furthermore, there is evidence that showing feedback about their respiration pattern helps them to improve their breathing skills. This study tests the feasibility of monitoring respiration using the Wiimote's infrared camera and showing BPM (breaths per minute) as feedback. A summary of the challenges addressed to achieve such a solution can also be found here. METHODS: A prototype was developed in order to study the viability of using the Wiimote to capture the breathing rate for creating applications to provide guidance to patients. RESULTS: The system implemented was able to acquire breathing data and provide feedback to the patient consisting in its breaths per minute. It is a non-invasive, low cost system, composed of a normal computer, a Wiimote, some markers and an infrared illuminator. It is also a comfortable solution without wires, batteries or any kind of electronics, the patients only wear passive markers. DISCUSSION: Despite the system was able to acquire breathing, it has some important limitations. The user has to be as immobile as it can, otherwise the system will fail. Some other issues found are discussed for future work. Although there exist these problems, the prototype had good outcomes when the subjects were resting of their exercise. They presented less than 15% of maximum error and the RMSE was lower than 6% in all the tests. This study establishes the basis to develop a Wiimote-based system to acquire respiration signals and present feedback or game-based rehabilitation.