Biomedical Equipment for the Measurement of Inspiratory and Expiratory Volumes Based on the Ubicu Respiratory Incentive

The increasing rates of restrictive respiratory diseases as a result of the consequences of COVID-19 in Colombia during the last three years have led to an increased implementation of lung reexpansion therapies, in order to treat and prevent the loss of lung volumes and capacities. There are different techniques to treat these problems, such as deep inspiration and respiratory incentives. Incentive physiotherapy is one of the techniques for the recovery of lung capacity that gives feedback to the patient about the volume or flow achieved. The Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali together with the Universidad del Valle designed the Ubicu respiratory incentive which is a system oriented to inspiration in lung reexpansion therapies along with the help of a gamified software that improved patient adherence. The objective of the project is to design and build a biomedical device to measure inspiratory and expiratory volume using a flow-volume sensor, determining the vital capacity of a healthy adult, seeking to enrich the qualities of the current Ubicu respiratory incentive. The design process was done with the use of TRIZ, Design Thinking and Axiomatic Design with an interdisciplinary team of the project. For the designed product, a primary plate-orifice sensor was used that allows the flow to be accurately measured in both directions, the management of the measurement and Bluetooth communication was done with the microcontroller ESP32, and the feedback with the UNITY platform. For the validation of the flow measurement, a reference system was used implementing the VT650 standard device and the CITREX H3 device, and the vital capacity was validated through tests with twelve healthy people, with an analogous basedline spirometer. It is concluded that the prototype built is an alternative to the current systems for measuring vital capacity and can be integrated into the current patient management system with greater performance than the current ones of inspired flow.