The lifeShirt. An advanced system for ambulatory measurement of respiratory and cardiac function.
A sensor shirt can quietly record breathing and heart rate all day, giving BCBAs real-world physiologic data they have never had before.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a shirt that watches breathing and heart rate all day.
Sensors are sewn into the fabric. A small box records the numbers.
People can walk, work, or sleep while the shirt keeps tracking.
What they found
The paper only shows how the shirt is made. It does not give patient results.
The authors say the shirt feels like normal clothing and does not get in the way.
How this fits with other research
Dixon (2003) built a Pocket-PC tool for scoring behavior in the field. Both papers want easy, mobile data capture.
Lancioni et al. (2009) used tiny switches on the body to catch micro-movements in vegetative patients. Like the LifeShirt, they hide sensors on the person to reveal hidden responses.
Meier et al. (2012) later showed those same microswitches can turn into communication devices. The LifeShirt could follow the same path: first collect data, then feed back to the client in real time.
Why it matters
If you need true baseline data outside clinic walls, a smart shirt gives you breathing and heart rate without wires or bulky packs. Pair it with behavior data from a Pocket-PC or microswitch and you can see how physiology changes with triggers, tasks, or reinforcers. Start small: try the shirt during one community outing and match spikes in breathing to your ABC notes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
An accurate ambulatory breathing monitor is needed to observe acute respiratory changes in patients with medical or psychological disorders outside the clinic (e.g., hyperventilation during panic or apneas during sleep). Significant limitations of existing monitors are size, troublesome operation, and difficulty holding chest and abdomen bands in place during 24-hour recordings. Recently, a garment has been developed with embedded inductive plethysmography sensors for continuous ambulatory monitoring of respiration, heart activity, inductive cardiography, motility, postural changes, and other functions. The signals are displayed and stored on a handheld computer (Visor), and then analyzed offline, extracting more than 40 clinical parameters relating to cardiorespiratory function (e.g., heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, tidal volume, stroke volume, pre-ejection period, apnea-hypopnea index, thoraco-abdominal coordination, sighing). The device also serves as an electronic diary of symptoms, moods, and activities. This advanced system may open a new era in ambulatory monitoring for clinical practice and scientific research.
Behavior modification, 2003 · doi:10.1177/0145445503256321