Noninvasive Home Monitor for Sleep Apnea Testing

描述（由申请人提供）：阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停影响约3-4%的人口，包括儿童。有相当大的相关发病率和死亡率。特别是与高血压和心脏病有很强的联系。白天嗜睡导致交通事故增加，工人产量下降。这种情况的关键诊断测试是夜间睡眠测试或夜间多导睡眠图。尽管这种疾病很严重，但大约80%的患者未被诊断出来。这在一定程度上是由于标准多导睡眠描记仪的费用昂贵和缺乏可用性。这引起了人们对开发便携式测试系统的极大兴趣，这些测试系统可以在家中为阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停提供经济、容易获得和准确的测试。我们提出了一种基于传感器的单一类型的监测系统，它将提供一个可靠和简单使用的单元，应该允许经济和高效的家庭测试。虽然我们建议使用单个传感器来实现简单易用的系统，但我们结合了数据分析方法，将允许恢复四个独立的指标来预测阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停。这应该允许一个比目前的便携式系统更准确的测试系统。由于所提出的系统将纠正便携式睡眠测试仪器的主要问题（实用性，机械性和提供诊断准确性的多种指标），我们预计该项目将导致成功的商业产品。该项目将开发一种简单易用的家庭技术，用于诊断睡眠呼吸暂停。这一点很重要，因为睡眠呼吸暂停是一种常见且严重的疾病，折磨着3-4%的人口，并显著导致心脏病和中风。睡眠呼吸暂停也与工作相关问题和车祸造成的巨大损失有关。尽管如此，近90-95%的睡眠呼吸暂停患者没有被诊断出来，部分原因是提供实验室睡眠研究的费用和困难。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Obstructive sleep apnea affects about 3-4% of the population including children. There is considerable associated morbidity and mortality. In particular there is a strong association with hypertension and cardiac disease. Daytime somnolence leads to increased traffic accidents and decreased worker production. The key diagnostic testing for this condition is overnight sleep testing or nocturnal polysomnography. Despite the seriousness of this medical condition about 80% of those afflicted are undiagnosed. This is due, in part, to the expense and lack of availability of standard polysomnography. This has lead to a great deal of interest in the development of portable testing systems that provide economical, readily available and accurate testing for obstructive sleep apnea at home. We propose a single type of sensor based monitoring system that would provide a reliable and simple to use unit that should allow for economical and efficient home testing. Although we propose the use of a single sensor to allow for a simple to use system, we incorporate data analysis methods that will allow for the recovery of four independent metrics for prediction of obstructive sleep apnea. This should allow for a more accurate testing system than current portable systems. Since the proposed system will correct the major problems with portable sleep testing instruments (practical, mechanical and provide multiple metrics for diagnostic accuracy), we anticipate that this project would result in a successful commercial product. This project will result the development of a simple to use, at-home technology for the diagnosis of sleep apnea. This is important since sleep apnea is a common and serious disorder afflicting 3-4% of the population and contributes significantly to heart disease and stroke. Sleep apnea also is implicated in a tremendous cost from work related problems and car accidents. Despite this nearly 90-95% of sleep apnea patients are not diagnosed, in part, due to the expense and difficulty of providing laboratory sleep studies.