Overview

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is a disorder characterised by pauses in breathing during sleep which leads to deoxygenation. OSA is often diagnosed with an overnight sleep test called a polysomnogram, or sleep study involving the measurement of brain activity through the electroencephalogram. Other parameters monitored include oxygen saturation, respiratory effort, electrocardiogram, as well as video recording, sound and movement activity. Monitoring can be costly and removes the patients from their normal sleeping environment, preventing repeated unbiased studies.

Project description

The recent increase in adoption of smartphones, with high quality on-board sensors has led to the proliferation of many sleep screening applications running on the phone. However, no existing application is based on scientific evidence. In this project we are developing a novel sleep apnoea screening framework and associated phone application that uses the on-board audio and accelerometer sensors to record audio, activity and body position during sleep. We are confident that the resulting software will provide a new, easy-to-use, low-cost and widely available modality for sleep apnoea screening at negligible cost (to users of smart phones).