Wearable Sleepcare Kit: Analysis and Prevention of Sleep Apnea Symptoms in Real-Time

• Main Authors: Yeong Jun Jeon, Soon Ju Kang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2019-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Wearable device; healthcare; sleep apnea; hypopnea; body-area network
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8703103/

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), although it is a common symptom for ordinary people, is a serious issue in that it can lead to chronic and degenerative brain disease. However, these sleep disorders and apnea symptoms are difficult to diagnose at home or to recognize and cope with severe apnea situations. In response to this, we developed a Sleepcare Kit, an integrated wearable device. The Sleepcare Kit is a wearable distributed system in which the PAAR band and the bio-cradle are combined in the form of a hot plug-in without pre-setting. The PAAR band serves as a gateway for wireless communication with external devices and adjusts initial setting values for various sensors of the bio-cradle. Bio-cradle continuously measures/stores multiple bio-signals (PPG/SPO2, respiration, 3axis-acc, and body temperature) and analyzes the signal data to determine sleep quality and emergency situation in real-time. Although it is a set of small wearable devices, the kit itself diagnoses sleep quality on a real-time base without any external computing assistance while he/she is asleep. Simultaneously, it analyzes the gathered hypopnea and apnea data in real time and calculates the apnea risk phase. Moreover, according to the apnea risk phase, it can inform the wearer or guardian about the danger through the smartphone or smart-speaker. In this paper, we will discuss the algorithm that is used for the detection of sleep apnea in Sleepcare Kit, as well as the software platform for continuous measurement and synchronization of various bio-signals in real time. Moreover, we evaluated the accuracy of the system by comparing the obtained results with the polysomnography equipment used in hospitals.