Summary
The current technology is a non-obtrusive system to monitor and diagnose sleep apnea and hypopnea.
Technology Overview
Diagnosis of sleep apnea is most commonly performed using multiple night PSG studies at a sleep center attended by a clinician. These studies have several limitations, including multiple sensors needing to be worn by patients and an unfamiliar location both of which can disrupt sleep.
OHSU has developed a non-obtrusive system to monitor and diagnose sleep apnea and hypopnea through the use of load cells installed in the supports of a patient’s bed. The load cells continuously and independently measure small fluctuations in weight due to the patient’s breathing, which can then be analyzed in the same fashion as traditional polysomnography (PSG) tracing data. OHSU researchers tested the effectiveness of using load cell breathing signals to detect sleep apnea and found this method was able to correctly classify disordered breathing segments with a sensitivity of 0.87 and a specificity of 0.97 for AHI >15. In addition, this equipment is light weight, easy to set up and transport, making this system compatible with at-home monitoring for more accurate data collection.
Licensing Opportunity
This technology is available for licensing.