APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DETECTING BREATH PATTERNS USING PATTERN RECOGNITION

摘要

Apparatus (16) for detecting a breath pattern of a patient comprising a sensor (17) in close proximity to the face of the patient for monitoring the patient's airflow to provide a channel of airflow information. The amount of air volume inhaled and exhaled by the patient is estimated to provide a signal representing the estimated volume of air. A wavelet transform feature extractor (36) provides a continuous-time wavelet transform of the estimated volume of air for ascertaining whether a breathing pattern has been recognized and provides a breathing pattern signal. A neural network pattern recognizer (38) operates on the breathing pattern signal to ascertain when abnormal breathing is occurring and provides an abnormal breathing signal. The abnormal breathing signal is operated on to classify the abnormal breathing.