Noninvasive Measurement of Heart Rate and Respiratory Rate for Perioperative Infants

A novel fiber optic sensor is designed with mesh microbenders for simultaneous perioperative measurement of heart rate (HR) and respiratory rate (RR) for infants. The feasibility of the mesh microbend fiber sensor was evaluated in ten infants, ranging from 1 to 12 months in a prospective cross-sectional observational study with the sensor placed under the subjects in the perioperative period. All the study subjects received standard intraoperative physiological monitoring of their vital signs. The high order harmonic sensing signals associated with other filtering methods are used for the removal of motion noise. The study results displayed good agreement in the measurement of HR and RR between the proposed microbend fiber sensor and the current standard physiological monitoring used in medical settings.