Lung atelectasis caused by shallow breathing patterns is common after cardiac, thoracic and upper abdominal surgeries.
A common method used to address this problem is to encourage patients to perform breathing exercises using incentive
spirometers in the postoperative period. However, to be effective, this procedure must be repeated regularly so that
adequate lung volumes can be maintained to prevent atelectasis. Current models of single-use, low-cost incentive
spirometers do not have features that can track and store data on breathing exercises. This makes it difficult to monitor
patients’ breathing exercises effectively. We present here a device designed to be interfaced with the Spiro-ball incentive
spirometer and programmed to monitor the incentive spirometry performance. Laboratory based validation performed
indicate that there were no significant differences between the value obtained from the device and manual reading;
p-value > 0.05 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) is 3.882. The device was able to retrieve and display pertinent data
on incentive spirometry performance. It was also able to correctly track and register random sets of inspiration data
through different dates and timelines. Being a separate entity which is reusable, it does not add to the cost of the singleuse
incentive spirometer