Early experiences in COPD exacerbation detection

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a slowly progressive disease characterized by airway obstruction. Patients suffering from COPD could report exacerbations, which are deteriorations in respiratory health that worsen the course of the disease. The prompt recognition of an exacerbation from daily variations and its early treatment reduces the healing time and the risk of hospitalization. Using a pulse oximeter connected to a mobile phone, we remotely collect the values of heart rate and of the oxygen saturation on a cohort of seven elderly patients affected by severe COPD. We analyze if a score given by the weighted composition of these signals permits to detect the worrisome events prefiguring an exacerbation onset. A cross validation-based evaluation allows us to assess how the results generalize to an independent data set. We found that the tested score does not provide satisfactory results in terms of sensitivity and specificity, suggesting that it is not able to disambiguate between exacerbation onset and other COPD related events.