OFSETH: A breathing motions monitoring system for patients under MRI

The potential benefit of optical fiber sensors embedded into medical textiles for the continuous monitoring of patients for MRI is presented. We report a monitoring system based on the use of two novel non-intrusive optical sensing technologies designed to measure the elongation due to abdominal and thoracic motions during breathing. The developed system can successfully sense textile elongation between 0.1% and 5%, while maintaining the stretching properties of the textile substrates for a good comfort of the patient. The solution prototyped shows a high stability and good reproducibility. The sensors are coupled to a compact, real time and accurate monitoring system.