Respiration rate measuring apparatus

Abstract

An apparatus is provided for measuring a respiration rate of a living subject, including a pulse rate measuring device which iteratively determines a pulse rate of the subject based on a pulse wave continuously produced from a peripheral portion of the subject; a systolic blood pressure measuring device which iteratively determines a systolic blood pressure of the subject based on a magnitude of a pressure pulse wave continuously produced from an arterial vessel of an extremity of the subject; a calculating device for iteratively calculating a product of two or more factors which include one of the iteratively determined pulse rates and one of the iteratively determined systolic blood pressures; and a respiration rate determining device for determining a respiration rate of the subject based on a period of a cyclic change of the iteratively calculated products. An apparatus is also provided for measuring a respiration rate of a living subject, including a pulse wave detecting device which detects a pulse wave continuously produced from the subject; a waveform evaluating device for iteratively providing an evaluated value of a waveform of the detected pulse wave; and a respiration rate determining device for determining a respiration rate of the subject based on a period of a cyclic change of the evaluated values iteratively provided by the waveform evaluating device.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.