Medical Textiles With Embedded Fiber Optic Sensors for Monitoring of Respiratory Movement

For patients under Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) spontaneous respiration is constantly at risk of being impaired by anesthetic drugs or by upper airway obstruction. Therefore, continuous monitoring of the breathing activity is needed to assess adequate ventilation or to detect specific obstruction patterns. The paper describes three MRI compatible respiration sensors based on pure optical technologies developed within the EU FP6 project OFSETH. The sensors are based on fiber Bragg gratings, optical time-domain reflectometry and macrobending effects. The developed smart medical textiles can sense elongation up to 3% while maintaining the stretching properties of the textile substrates for patient's comfort. The OFSETH harness allows a continuous measurement of abdominal and thoracic respiration movement while all vitals organs are free for medical staff actions. The sensors were tested in MRI environment and on healthy adults.