Respiratory rate of photoplethysmogram signal from anaesthetic patients

This paper presents a novel method in determining the respiratory rate from the photoplethysmogram signal of anaesthetic patients. The respiratory rate is important to be monitored when the patient is in anaesthesia state since the patient loss all sensations during this state. This study compares two methods of determining respiratory rate; peak detection and Fast Fourier Transform. The methods were tested on a set of data from subjects with mean age of 52 years old. Data were recorded using pulse oximeter as it is the best device to take the signal of anaesthetic patient. It was found that there is a small difference in the respiratory between both methods; (0.03-0.53). This indicates that Fast Fourier Transform can be used to determine respiratory rate of photoplethysmogram signal.