Mobile technology could fill a gap in medical diagnosis
By MONICA ROZENFELD
23 January 2015
Loud snoring, restless sleep, morning headaches, and changes in mood
are signs that someone may have sleep apnea, a disorder in which people
stop breathing repeatedly throughout the night. Most people with the
disorder, which increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke, are
often unaware and go undiagnosed. To help solve this problem, one Ph.D.
student has been working on an app for mobile devices to help detect
sleep apnea. Eventually, he hopes it will be accurate enough to be used
as a screening tool for the disorder.
Smartphone apps are already available to measure sleep activity such
as tossing and turning, waking during the night, heavy breathing, and
snoring, which could all be signs of a sleep disorder. Joachim Behar
thought he might use these apps to detect sleep apnea, but after
spending two months reviewing some 40 of these apps, he and his team at
Oxford found them all lacking. They concluded that most were
scientifically unsound and did not have any clinical evidence that they
are accurate. Taking matters into his own hands, Behar designed SleepAp
to help detect sleep apnea with the help of colleagues in Oxford’s
department of engineering science. He also received support from the
Oxford Centre for Affordable Technology, which is headed by his
professor Gari Clifford, and the sleep unit at the Oxford Centre for
Respiratory Medicine at Churchill Hospital.
More reading:
IEEE the Institute