Deriving respiration from the pulse wave: anew signal processing
technique.
Meersman, Ronald E. De, Adrienne S. Zion, Susan Teitelbaum, Joseph P.
Weir, James Lieberman, and John Downey.
College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Box 38, 630 West 168th Street,
New York, NY 10032
APStracts 2:0438H, 1995.
Investigations of autonomic nervous system activity using spectral
analysis of heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) variability is
very popular in many scientific disciplines, and yet, only half of
all studies involving spectral analysis control for respiration.
Since respiration modulates HR and BP variability, knowledge of the
respiratory rate is necessary for the proper interpretation of HR and
BP power spectra. We devised and validated a new signal processing
technique to derive respiration from the blood pressure wave. This
technique is based upon the relationship between oscillations in the
area under the dicrotic notch of the pulse wave and respiration. The
results of our new signal processing technique yielded significant
correlations between protocols of the actual number of respiratory
cycles and our blood pressure-derived respiratory cycles and their
respective spectra, for a number of standard autonomic tests (p
< 0.05). Our method will allow retrospective extraction of the
respiratory wave and as such afford a more precise interpretation of
HR and BP spectra.
Received 26 June 1995; accepted in final form 26 September 1995.
APS Manuscript Number H584-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 6 November 95