Estimating Sedentary Breathing Rate from Chest-Worn Accelerometry From Free-Living Data

Breathing rate was estimated from chest-worn accelerometry collected from 1,522 servicemembers during training by a wearable physiological monitor. A total of 29,189 hours of training and sleep data were analyzed. The primary purpose of the monitor was to assess thermal-work strain and avoid heat injuries. The monitor design was thus not optimized to estimate breathing rate. Since breathing rate cannot be accurately estimated during periods of high activity, a qualifier was applied to identify sedentary time periods, totaling 8,867 hours. Breathing rate was estimated for a total of 4,179 hours, or 14% of the total collection and 47% of the sedentary total, primarily during periods of sleep. The breathing rate estimation method was compared to an FDA 510(K)-cleared criterion breathing rate sensor (Zephyr, Annapolis MD, USA) in a controlled laboratory experiment, which showed good agreement between the two techniques. Contributions of this paper are to: 1) provide the first analysis of accelerometry-derived breathing rate on free-living data including periods of high activity as well as sleep, along with a qualifier that effectively identifies sedentary periods appropriate for estimating breathing rate; 2) test breathing rate estimation on a data set with a total duration that is more than 60 times longer than that of the largest previously reported study, 3) test breathing rate estimation on data from a physiological monitor that has not been expressly designed for that purpose.