Patent Application
20230293032
The present invention relates to a method for providing real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of an individual, as well as to an associated device.
It is known that an individual's aerobic power is normally defined in terms of maximum oxygen consumption: such parameter is also referred to as VO2max.
The VO2max parameter is used, for example, in order to monitor cardiorespiratory adaptations to aerobic training programs, prescribe exercise intensity for aerobic training, and predict performance levels during resistance-based sports events.
It is also known that a direct measurement of an individual's expired gas samples provides highly reliable and accurate data, and is therefore considered to be the “gold standard”, i.e., the most accurate diagnostic test for determining the VO2max parameter of an individual.
In particular, the gold standard used for detecting the VO2max parameter, among others, is undoubtedly the cardiopulmonary stress test.
Very often, however, this test is only available for selected individuals, in particular professional athletes or patients affected by particular disorders, because it requires costly equipment and qualified personnel.
As a consequence, many equations have been developed for estimating the VO2max parameter, which utilize different variables such as, for example, sex, age, height, weight, time of execution of a walk or a run on a treadmill and power thus generated, and so forth.
Such equations have been defined for various reference populations, including for instance men, women, teenager athletes, university students, elderly people, etc. One example of such equations can be found in the article by Malek et al. “A new non-exercise-based VO2max prediction equation for aerobically trained men”, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2005, 19(3), pp. 559-565.
Such equations are necessarily inaccurate because, of course, they cannot precisely measure the VO2max parameter of every single individual. Instead, they estimate it on the basis of rough hypotheses assigning the individual to a given reference population.
Wearable garments are also commercially available, in particular chest belts, which are used, in particular, by people practising sports, whether at amateur or professional level, and measure a person's heart rate.
Such garments derive the ventilatory and metabolic parameter (VO2max) from the heart rate. However, they do not provide reliable data, in comparison with the “gold standard” of the cardiopulmonary stress test.
More in detail, in the sports world many resources have been dedicated by professionals, in particular sport physicians and scientists, to evaluating the various aspects of physical response to exercise, with particular reference to muscular force, power, maximum achievable speed and aerobic and anaerobic effort phases; not much attention has been paid to ventilatory response to exercise.
In many studies, cardiorespiratory response to exercise has been used essentially for finding the VO2max and anaerobic threshold values.
Training systems have also evolved over time with the advent of GPS, but they are still essentially based solely on cardiac response to exercise.
For example, metabolic power (postulated by comparing the sprint of a soccer player to an uphill run) extrapolates from the GPS data the athlete's energetic expenditure (GPEXE); or chest belts estimate, through suitable software, the VO2max parameter from the heart rate: see, in this regard, the article by Prampero et al. entitled “Sprint running: a new energetic approach”, The Journal of Experimental Biology, August 2005, pp. 2809-2816. An article available on the Internet webpage https://www.firstbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/white_paper_vo2_estimation.pdf suggests the inaccuracy of the respiratory data obtained from chest belts, since it cannot be measured directly.
One of the inventors of the present patent application has executed approximately 2,500 cardiopulmonary stress tests on national and international professional athletes, publishing two scientific papers highlighting that ventilatory response and efficiency to exercise are ineluctable elements for the evaluation of the athletic performance of such athletes (see articles by Di Paco et al, “Changes in ventilatory response to exercise in trained athletes: respiratory physiological benefits beyond cardiovascular performance”, Archivos de Bronconèumologia, February 2017, pp. 237-244; Di Paco et al., “Ventilatory response to exercise of elite soccer players”, Multidisciplinary Respiratory Medicine, April 2014, 9:20).
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a method for providing real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of an individual, as well as an associated device.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for providing real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of an individual, which is suitable for professional and amateur athletes and also for simple sports enthusiasts.
In brief, the present invention envisages a first embodiment comprising a method divided into two phases.
During a first phase, a subject undergoes a cardiopulmonary stress test in accordance with a given protocol, e.g., on a treadmill, and using a standard protocol (starting at 8 km/h and increasing the speed by 1 km/h per minute until physical exhaustion), for directly measuring the expired gases and volumes.
Subsequently, a plurality of characteristic curves are obtained, which are mathematical functions that correlate the ventilatory and metabolic parameters of the individual with the respiratory rate only.
During a second phase of the method, such functions, which are univocally associated with the subject who has undergone the cardiopulmonary stress test, are used in an algorithm, e.g., implemented in an electronic device like, for example, a wearable device such as a smartwatch or a smartphone, or a tablet, an iPad, or even in cloud, for monitoring in real time the respiratory parameters of the individual and comparing them with his/her personal data obtained during the cardiopulmonary stress test, and then providing physiological indications, recommending physical exercises, predicting performance levels, and so forth.
This embodiment of the invention has been specially conceived for professional athletes (soccer players, cyclists, walkers, long-distance runners, etc.), who are regularly subjected to cardiopulmonary stress tests to obtain the authorization for competitive sport activities.
A second embodiment of the invention has been specially devised for non-professional and amateur athletes as well as simple sports enthusiasts.
More in detail, an individual who cannot or does not want to undergo a cardiopulmonary stress test, which, as aforesaid, is expensive and requires properly trained personnel to be executed, can nevertheless advantageously benefit from the results obtained from a plurality of other individuals who have carried out the cardiopulmonary stress test.
In fact, the data obtained from people who have undergone a cardiopulmonary stress test are collected into a special database.
An individual who cannot or does not want to undergo a cardiopulmonary stress test will have to wear a wearable garment, in particular a chest belt, and will repeat the same protocol, e.g., on a treadmill, as that which is used by people who carry out a cardiopulmonary stress test (e.g., starting at 8 km/h and increasing the speed by 1 km/h per minute until physical exhaustion); by measuring just the respiratory rate, the characteristic curves of a subject will be identified, among all the characteristic curves of people who underwent the cardiopulmonary stress test, which approximate most closely the characteristic curves of the individual. This search will be assisted by using anthropometric data of the various subjects, in particular sex, height, weight and age, in order to create some sort of initial division of the same into different groups. Once the reference characteristic curves have been identified, they will be implemented in memory means of the chest belt worn by the non-professional, amateur or enthusiast athlete for monitoring in real time his/her performance, recommending exercises, etc.
A substantial advantage of the method according to the invention lies in the fact that the functions developed by means of the gold standard provide an accurate profile in terms of ventilatory and metabolic cardiac response, whereas with only the heart rate and respiratory rate it would not be possible to extrapolate the aspect related to ventilation and to the metabolic component.
Further advantageous features of the present invention will be set out in the appended claims.
Further features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of an embodiment thereof as shown in the annexed drawings, which are supplied merely by way of non-limiting example, wherein:
With reference to
At step 102, a subject starts a cardiopulmonary stress test in accordance with a given protocol, e.g., on a treadmill using a standard protocol (starting at 8 km/h and increasing the speed by 1 km/h per minute until physical exhaustion). Of course, the test may be carried out by using different means, e.g., a bicycle ergometer, and by following protocols other than said standard protocol.
The subject is connected to an electrocardiograph and, by means of a mouthpiece or a mask, to a breath detector that measures the air volumes taken in at each respiratory action, and to an analyzer that analyzes the gases (carbon dioxide and oxygen) that are exchanged at alveolus level. All the data collected during the exercise are processed by dedicated software, which provides a set of characteristic curves representing the individual adaptation to exercise in terms of ventilation and metabolism.
At step 104, a suitable apparatus known in the art directly measures a number of cardiac or respiratory parameters, an extract of which is shown by way of example in
The parameters that are typically measured during a cardiopulmonary stress test are:
At step 106, the individual ends the cardiopulmonary stress test.
At step 108, these parameters are recorded into a database.
At step 110, by using the values entered into the database, one or more characteristic curves, or mathematical functions, are calculated which include only the respiratory rate as dependent variable and, as independent variables, ventilation, current volume, maximum oxygen consumption, maximum carbon dioxide consumption, end-expiratory partial oxygen pressure and end-expiratory partial carbon dioxide pressure.
Such functions are, preferably, second-degree polynomial functions obtained through a second-degree polynomial fitting of the measured values.
Such functions make it possible to obtain the subject's ventilatory and metabolic parameters starting from the subject's respiratory rate alone.
By way of example, ventilation VE can be obtained through the parameters a, b, c obtained from the respiratory rate FREQ.RESP alone, by applying the data obtained from the cardiopulmonary stress test to the formula:
VE=a·(FREQ.RESP)2+b·(FREQ.RESP)+c (1)
By so doing, a single ventilation value will be obtained for a given respiratory rate, such value representing a sort of mean ventilation value of all values detected in the subject during the cardiopulmonary stress test.
In another embodiment, such functions are, preferably, third-degree polynomial functions obtained through a third-degree polynomial fitting of the measured values.
By way of example, as shown in
VE=a·(FREQ.RESP)3+b·(FREQ.RESP)2+c·(FREQ.RESP)+d (2)
In the example shown herein, the curve 300 showing an increasing trend with moderate peaks is the curve measured during the cardiopulmonary stress test, while the curve 302 showing more pronounced peaks is the one approximated by the cubic function represented in the Figure by using the formula (2).
Still by way of example, as shown in
VO
2
=a·(FREQ.RESP)3+b·(FREQ.RESP)2+c·(FREQ.RESP)+d (3)
In the example shown herein, the curve 304 showing an increasing trend with moderate peaks is the curve measured during the cardiopulmonary stress test, while the curve 306 showing more pronounced peaks is the one approximated by the cubic function represented in the Figure by using the formula (3).
Referring back to
The electronic device generally comprises a display, and possibly a graphic interface, for providing visual indications to the user. It may also comprise audible signalling means for providing the user with other types of messages and/or alarms and/or indications.
With reference to
In order to monitor in real time the athletic performance of a subject, in particular an athlete, he/she will have to wear the wearable garment 150 comprising means 152 for measuring at least his/her respiratory rate.
Preferably, the wearable device is a chest belt.
Even more preferably, the wearable device 150 is a chest belt that measures the subject's respiratory rate via means adapted to detect the extension of the material, e.g., a fabric, it is made of. Chest belts of this kind are known, for example, from patent documents no. CN204133468U, WO2018037855 and EP2578141.
The wearable garment 150 further comprises at least:
Typically, such characteristic curves are transmitted to the wearable garment 150 from the database via the data transceiving module 160.
The wearable device may further comprise one or more of the following modules:
By measuring only the respiratory rate via the wearable garment 150, the subject, in particular an athlete, will be able to monitor, via his/her heart rate, for example, ventilation and maximum oxygen consumption, as well as the evolution of his/her training path, observing in real time his/her improvements (or regressions) as a function of the trend of such current values.
For example, the effort being equal, the subject will be able to compare the values and define a strategy to improve a (ventilatory/metabolic or cardiac) quality and calibrate his/her work based on the accuracy bound to the ventilatory and metabolic datum, i.e., maximum oxygen consumption.
With reference to
In this second embodiment, the database contains values derived from cardiopulmonary stress tests carried out by a plurality of subjects. For the purposes of the method of the invention, the larger the number of tests stored in the database, the greater the effectiveness of the method.
This second embodiment of the method according to the invention has been specially devised for non-professional and amateur athletes as well as simple sports enthusiasts.
At step 202, an individual who cannot or does not want to undergo a cardiopulmonary stress test wears a wearable device comprising means adapted to detect his/her respiratory rate. It is known, in fact, as already mentioned, that for the execution of a cardiopulmonary stress test it is necessary to employ costly equipment and qualified personnel.
At step 204, the individual, by using the same protocol illustrated at step 102, carries out a dynamic test by running on a treadmill or pedalling on a bicycle ergometer or other similar means. It is essential, for the proper application of this embodiment of the method, that the protocol followed by the individual is the same as that which was used by the subjects who underwent the cardiopulmonary stress test according to steps 102, 104, 106, 108 and 110, illustrated herein with reference to the method of
At step 206, the respiratory rate detected by the wearable device worn by the individual is stored into suitable memory means of the same device and/or communicated to an external recorder.
The equipment necessary for the stress test of steps 204-206 is advantageously minimal and not very expensive: as a matter of fact, a treadmill (or a bicycle ergometer) and a wearable device detecting the individual's respiratory rate will suffice. Therefore, the test can be carried out without an electrocardiograph, a mask with a mouthpiece, or qualified personnel. The test can even be carried out in a domestic environment, so long as the individual knows the protocol to be followed.
At step 208, the individual ends the motor activity envisaged by the protocol.
At step 210, the respiratory rate detected by the wearable device is transmitted to a cloud, where it is then compared with the values stored in the database, which contains the respiratory values of individuals who have carried out a cardiopulmonary stress test.
At step 212, the functions of a subject are identified, among those contained in the database, which approximate most closely the respiratory values of the individual who has carried out the test at step 202, possibly also taking into account anthropometric data of that subject, in particular sex, height, weight and age.
The functions can be chosen by using statistical techniques (e.g., the least residual or highest verisimilitude techniques) or machine learning techniques (e.g., the K-Means algorithm or neural networks).
At step 214, the curve obtained at step 212 is transmitted to the wearable garment 150 and used in an algorithm, e.g., implemented in an electronic device like, in particular a wearable device such as a smartwatch or a smartphone, or a tablet, an iPad, or even in cloud, for monitoring in real time the current respiratory and/or cardiac parameters of the individual and providing physiological indications, recommending physical exercises, predicting performance, and so forth.
Advantageously, therefore, the individual who has not undergone an expensive cardiopulmonary stress test will be able to benefit from accurate data of subjects who carried out the cardiopulmonary stress test, which is considered to be the gold standard.
The method for providing real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of an individual, and the associated device, described herein by way of example may be subject to many possible variations without departing from the novelty spirit of the inventive idea; it is also clear that in the practical implementation of the invention the illustrated details may have different shapes or be replaced with other technically equivalent elements.
For example, the invention also relates to a system comprising a wearable garment 150, in which the individual's characteristic curves are stored, and an electronic device, in particular a smartwatch, a smartphone, a tablet, an iPad or a cloud, which suitably communicates with such wearable garment 150 to provide real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of the individual wearing the garment 150.
As an alternative, the system comprises a wearable garment that simply measures the respiratory rate of the individual and communicates with an electronic device worn by the user, in particular a smartwatch or a smartphone, in which the characteristic curves are stored.
It can therefore be easily understood that the present invention is not limited to a method for providing real-time information about the cardiac and/or respiratory performance of an individual and an associated device described herein by way of example, but may be subject to many modifications, improvements or replacements of equivalent parts and elements without departing from the novelty spirit of the inventive idea, as clearly specified in the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 102020000014500 | Jun 2020 | IT | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IB2021/055207 | 6/14/2021 | WO |
