A Dual-Purpose Biomedical Measurement System for the Evaluation of Real-Time Correlations Between Blood Pressure and Breathing Parameters

This paper proposes a low-cost measurement system that can be used to perform simultaneous blood pressure (BP) and breathing (BR) measurements. Regarding BP measurements, the main parameters that are accessed include systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure blood pressure (MAP), and heartbeat rate (HR). Concerning BR measurements, the main parameters that are accessed include the inspiration period and amplitude (IPA), the expiration period and amplitude (EPA), and the breathing rate (BR), as well as the statistical and standard deviation of all these parameters. The dual measurement capability of the proposed measurement system is very important since blood pressure and breathing parameters are not statistically independent and it is possible to obtain additional and valuable clinical information from the information provided by both biomedical variables when measured simultaneously. The analysis of the correlation between these variables is particularly important after performing intensive physical exercises, since it enables cardiac rehabilitation assessment, pre-surgical risk evaluation, detection of silent ischemia, and monitoring of chronic diseases recovery, among others. Regarding the performance evaluation of the proposed biomedical device, a prototype of the measurement system was developed, tested, and calibrated. Several experimental tests were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed measurement system and to obtain the correlation coefficients between different blood pressure and breathing parameters. The tests were based on a statistically significant number of measurements that were performed with a population that integrated twenty students in two groups with different habits of physical exercise practice but subjected to a set of common physical exercises, with graduated intensity levels.