REMOTE RESPIRATION MONITORING SYSTEM FOR SLEEP APNEA DETECTION

Sleep is a dynamic physiological process, its primary function being the restoration of the central nervous system. Because sleep disorders affect a significant part of the population the dynamic long term monitoring of human respiration plays a very important role in diagnosis and treatment. Material and methods: We describe a remote monitoring system designed for in-hospital or at-home detection with a high degree of accuracy of sleep-related disorders in patients experiencing episodes of obstructive sleep apnea. Patient's respiratory rate is continuously measured by using wireless devices and then transfered to a central monitoring station via a wireless sensor network. The central monitoring station runs a respiration monitoring application that receives the patient's respiratory rate from the network and activates an alert upon detection of a sleep apnea episode. Results: A user-friendly graphical user interface was designed for the respiration monitoring application that displays patient's respiratory rates and sleep apnea alerts. A prototype of the system has been developed, implemented and tested. Conclusions: The described system allows persons with respiratory diseases or elderly to be monitored at their homes, as an alternative to medical supervision in hospitals.