Program for easy visualisation of spirmoetric records
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We are currently working on a programme for easy visualisation of spirometric records in the diagnosis of occupational asthma. In the past, we regarded workers "exposed" from monday to friday, putting all the values for each day on top of each other, so that a longer record is condensed into one week. This however does not work with complicated shift patterns etc. What is your idea? Is it reasonable to do the programming like this or would it be better to present one week after another?
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Much the simplest thing to do would to be to use the plots provided by Oasys. If you don't have a copy, I will send you one. Using Oasys the "average day" plot starts with the first day at work after a rest day, whatever the day of the week, and gives you the daily mean (like your plot averaging the 7 days of the week separately but adjusted for the days actually worked). There is also an average hourly plot where all workdays are averaged and compared with all rest days. Both of these require "day interpretation" (provided by the Oasys program), where a "day" starts with the first reading at work, and continues to the last reading before work on the following day. There are rather complicated automatic adjustments when moving from day to night work. We currently use the daily average plot to see the type of pattern of reaction with repeated days exposure. In the past when less treatment and more severe disease were more common, there were distinct patterns, with some getting progressively worse throughout the working week, some being equivalently bad each day, and a few being worse on the first workday with subsequent tolerance developing (perhaps due to endotoxin, as in byssinosis). The plots we now see mostly show equivalent daily deterioration.
The average hourly plot depends on waking time, and does contain information lost in the basic plot of daily maximum, mean and minimum. We are currently working on these plots to see if an additional analysis will improve the overall sensitivity and specificity of Oasys.
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