Respiratory mechanics: modelling, measurement and clinical applications-a review
Date
2026
Authors
Chowdhury, A.
Baumert, M.
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Journal article
Citation
BioMedical Engineering OnLine, 2026; 25(1):1-31
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Anuva Chowdhury and Mathias Baumert
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Abstract
The mechanical properties of the airways significantly impact respiration, and estimating respiratory mechanics provides important insights for diagnosing and monitoring respiratory diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Here, we review electrical equivalent models of human respiratory mechanics and derive the mathematical expressions of their impedance. We describe the necessity of transitioning from a basic single-compartment model to a multi-frequency constant-phase model to represent respiratory mechanics in both health and disease. We review the forced oscillation technique and impulse oscillometry systems, which are clinically used to measure respiratory mechanics via respiratory impedance, and examine their roles in respiratory diseases. We also describe how respiratory impedance can be interpreted using these electrical analog representations to estimate key mechanical parameters. Attention is given to the limitations arising from device-specific variability and intra- and inter-breath fluctuations, where frequency-compensation filters and modelling strategies incorporating nonlinear resistance and compliance models could enhance the robustness and standardization of impedance-based analysis.
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© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/