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IntroductionObjective cough frequency is a key clinical endpoint but existing wearable monitors are limited to 24-h recordings. Albus Home uses contactless motion, acoustic and environmental sensors to monitor multiple metrics, including respiratory rate and cough without encroaching on patient lifestyle. The aim of this study was to evaluate measurement characteristics of nocturnal cough monitoring by Albus Home compared to manual counts.MethodsAdults with respiratory conditions underwent overnight monitoring using Albus Home in their usual bedroom environments. Participants set-up the plug-and-play device themselves. For reference counts, each audio recording was counted by two annotators, and cough defined as explosive phases audio-visually labelled by both. In parallel, recordings were processed by a proprietary Albus system, comprising a deep-learning algorithm with a human screening step for verifying or excluding occasional events that mimic cough. Performance of the Albus system in detecting individual cough events and reporting hourly cough counts was compared against reference counts.Results30 nights from 10 subjects comprised 375 h(h) of recording. Mean (s.d.) coughs/night were 90 (76). Coughs·h−1 ranged from 0 to 129. Albus counts were accurate across hours with high and low cough frequencies, with median sensitivity, specificity, positive-predictive-value, negative-predictive-values of 94.8,100.0,99.1, and 100.0% respectively. Agreement between Albus and reference was strong (Intra-class Correlation Coefficient[ICC] 0.99; 95%CI 0.99-0.99; p<0.001) and equivalent to agreement between observers and reference counts (ICC 0.98, 0.99 respectively).ConclusionsAlbus Home provides a unique, contactless and accurate system for cough monitoring, enabling collection of high-quality and potentially clinically relevant longitudinal data.

Original publication

DOI

10.1183/23120541.00265-2022

Type

Journal article

Journal

ERJ Open Research

Publisher

European Respiratory Society (ERS)

Publication Date

01/09/2022

Pages

00265 - 2022