Contactless Sleep Monitoring for the Detection of Exacerbations in People With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Protocol for a Longitudinal Observational Study

Background: Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are one of the main causes of mortality, and early detection of exacerbations is thus essential. Telemedicine solutions have shown promising results for the detection of exacerbations in COPD and have increasingly been used. However, the effect of telemedicine is divergent. According to several studies, respiration rate (RR) increases before, during, and after an exacerbation and the change is measurable with several contactless devices. Despite this, RR is rarely measured, and telemedicine solutions only use wearable devices for measuring RR, even though wearable respiratory monitoring devices have been associated with certain drawbacks. Contactless devices are often used during sleep, as measurements conducted during sleep minimize the risk of disturbance from physical activities. However, the potential of measuring RR and heart rate (HR) during sleep for the detection of exacerbations in COPD remains unclear. Objective: The aim of this observational study is to investigate whether contactless measurement of RR, HR, and sleep stages can be used to detect exacerbations in people with COPD. Methods: An observational study including 50 participants with COPD will be conducted. The participants reside in Aalborg municipality, located in the North Denmark Region. Participants will use a contactless monitor (Sleepiz One+) near their bed during sleep for a period of 4 months. After data collection, descriptive statistics will be used to identify any extremes or variations in RR, HR, or sleep stages in the nights preceding an exacerbation. Correlation analysis will be performed to evaluate the relationship between the number of exacerbations and extremesor variations in RR, HR, or sleep stages. Finally, qualitative interviews will be conducted with 12 participants to explore their experiences of sleeping with the monitor nearby. Results: Recruitment started at the end of April 2024. A total of 12 participants have been recruited, and the remaining participants are expected to be recruited during March and April 2025. Six out of 12 participants have completed the data collection and qualitative interview stages. Overall data collection is expected to be completed by September 2025. The results are expected to provide insight into the potential for identifying extremesor variations in RR, HR, or sleep stages in the days preceding an exacerbation. Additionally, the results are expected to assess the correlation between the number of exacerbations and extremes or variations in RR, HR, and sleep stages. Conclusions:The findings from this study may clarify the possibility of using a contactless monitor to detect exacerbations in COPD. Furthermore, the results may have the potential to improve the ability to predict exacerbations in the future.