Abstract
Pediatric sleep-related breathing disorders, or sleep-disordered
breathing (SDB), cover a range of conditions including obstructive sleep
apnea (OSA), central sleep apnea (CSA), sleep-related hypoventilation
disorders, and sleep-related hypoxemia disorder. Pediatric SDB is often
underdiagnosed, potentially due to difficulties associated with
performing the gold standard polysomnography (PSG) in children. This
scoping review aims to: 1) provide an overview of the studies reporting
on safe, noncontact monitoring of respiration in young children; 2)
describe the accuracy of these techniques, and 3) highlight their
respective advantages and limitations. PubMed and EMBASE were searched
for studies researching techniques in children <12 years old.
Both quantitative data and the quality of the studies were analyzed. The
evaluation of study quality was conducted using the QUADAS-2 tool. A
total of 17 studies were included. Techniques could be grouped into
bed-based methods, ultra-wideband (UWB) radar, Doppler radar, video,
infrared (IR) cameras, garment-embedded sensors, and sound analysis.
Most either measured respiratory rate (RR) or detected apneas; five
aimed to do both. Noncontact sleep monitoring techniques are safe, but
accuracy data of these techniques is limited, and large heterogeneity
exists regarding study quality and stage. Motion artifacts affect
accuracies of apnea detection. Sleep respiration analysis could benefit
from sleep stage classification and breathing sound analysis. Further
research is crucial to facilitate easily accessible and safe non-contact
methods for respiration monitoring in a home setting.