Advances in wearable respiration sensors

Respiration is a vital function of the human body that can provide valuable information about an individual’s health through many physiological signals, including respiration rate and the chemical composition of exhaled breath. Traditional respiration monitoring methods suffer from tradeoffs between accuracy and size, with large laboratory-sized machines producing accurate expert interpretation and portable devices suffering validity limitations. To address this issue, recent advances in wearable respiration monitoring technologies have presented a potential alternative due to their compelling properties such as continuous monitoring capability, biocompatibility, excellent flexibility, and high efficiency, while maintaining high levels of accuracy. This review comprehensively examines contemporary wearable respiration sensors, focusing on their underlying mechanisms - applied physics and analytical chemistry. This work further investigates sensors specifically designed for wearable respiration monitoring in the context of COVID-19, an acute respiratory disease that has caused a global health crisis. Finally, this review concludes with a discussion of the current challenges associated with wearable sensors and their prospective role in personalized healthcare. We envision that wearable respiration sensors will be essential in transforming our approach to health and wellness, and ultimately promoting a new standard of wellbeing for all.