New disposable wearable patch helps detect sleep apnoea

Do you suffer from disrupted sleep? Take heart, a new, disposable diagnostic patch that effectively detects obstructive sleep apnoea across all severity levels may help you get a good sleep.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder which occurs when a person's throat muscles intermittently relax and block the airways during sleep, and this causes breathing to repeatedly stop and start during sleep.

Most home sleep diagnostic devices are difficult for patients to use and are disruptive to patient's sleep.

However, the new skin-adhesive diagnostic patch is light and weighs less than one ounce or about 28 grams.

It records nasal pressure, blood oxygen saturation, pulse rate, respiratory effort, sleep time and body position, without affecting the sleep of the user, the researchers said.

Researchers analysing home usability of the device found that 38 out of 39 users were successful in activating the diagnostic patch and collecting at least four hours of sleep data while relying only on the instructions included with the device.

"This wearable home sleep monitor is very comfortable, easy to use and does not negatively affect sleep," said lead researcher Maria Merchant, CEO of Somnarus Inc -- a US-based a medical diagnostic company.

For the study, published recently in the journal Sleep, the team analysed polysomnography -- test used to diagnose sleep disorders -- and patch recordings from 174 participants.

Further, results show that the total rate of clinical agreement between the patch and standard in-lab polysomnography was 87.4 per cent with 95 per cent confidence interval of 81.4 per cent to 91.9 per cent.

"Our study provided clinical validation of a new wearable device for diagnosing sleep apnea," Merchant added.