Including the man in the The present invention various positions, such as during sleep or during exercise Development of a novel method and apparatus capable of monitoring variations in breathing and / or heart rate in various animals with high sensitivity. At A state in which the piezoelectric vibrator directly or placed indirect contact under pressure on the body surface of the animal, its piezoelectric vibrator, the frequency of the AC voltage corresponding to the natural resonance frequency to the piezoelectric vibrator the step of vibrating the piezoelectric vibrator by continuously or intermittently applied, the process retrieves the current piezoelectric vibrator is produced in a vibrational state, and the AC voltage applied to the current value and the piezoelectric vibrator of the current, calculates the impedance of the piezoelectric vibrator and a voltage value, and a step of continuously or intermittently detect temporal variations of the impedance is monitored either or both variations in breathing and heart rate of the animals method and apparatus used in the practice of this monitoring method.【課題】就寝中や運動中などの様々な姿勢にある人間を含む各種動物の呼吸及び/又は心拍の変動を高い感度にて監視することができる新規な方法と装置の開発。【解決手段】圧電振動子を動物の体表面に加圧下に直接あるいは間接的に接触配置した状態にて、その圧電振動子に、該圧電振動子に固有の共振周波数に相当する周波数の交流電圧を継続的もしくは間欠的に印加することにより圧電振動子を振動させる工程、振動状態にある圧電振動子が発生する電流を取り出す工程、そして該電流の電流値と圧電振動子に印加した交流電圧の電圧値とから圧電振動子のインピーダンスを算出し、そのインピーダンスの経時的な変動を継続的もしくは間欠的に検出する工程を含む、当該動物の呼吸および心拍のいずれか一方もしくは両方の変動を監視する方法およびこの監視方法の実施に用いられる装置。
