Experimental setup for the quantification of the cardio-pulmonary responses to different artificial respiratory loads

In order to investigate the effects induced on respiratory and cardio-circulatory activity by mechanical dysfunctions in the respiratory system, devices were designed and constructed for increasing both resistive and elastic respiratory loads, thus simulating obstructive and restrictive pathologies, respectively. The resistive load was obtained as a duct, with a resistive core, having linear characteristics; elastic load was obtained by imposing the respiration from a closed volume. The elastic load too had linear characteristics. The artificial loads were calibrated for producing a total load about three times the normal intrinsic loads and were applied to a group of normal subjects. A set of signals from the respiratory and cardio-circulatory system were recorded and analysed through proper algorithms for obtaining quantitative parameters both in time and frequency domain.