SLEEP APNEA MONITOR TO DETECT ALL THE FORMS OF APNEA

摘要

Herein described is a novel monitoring system for the detection of sleep apnea, a common respiration disorder. Sleep apnea is classified as Central Sleep Apnea (CSA), Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Mixed Sleep Apnea. Detection and differentiation of all the forms of apnea is desired for proper diagnosis and prognosis of the disease. Existing monitors based only on respiration movement signals are unable to detect OSA separately, as the respiration movements persist despite the cessation of air flow. The monitoring system introduced herein separately detects all the forms of sleep apnea only by the information from abdominal and thoracic excursion signals. CSA is reported if no or very small respiration movements occur for a predefined interval of 10 seconds. OSA episode is said to occur when the abdominal and the thoracic excursion signals go out of phase. The developed monitor is based only on simple electronics hardware and circumvents the need for software integration.