Smartphone App Detects Sleep Apnea
From: IEEE - 01/23/2015
By: Monica Rozenfeld

Mobile technology could fill a gap in medical diagnosis

Joachim Behar, a PhD 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 which increases the risk of a
heart attack or stroke.

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.

Read the entire article at:
http://theinstitute.ieee.org/technology-focus/technology-topic/smartphone-app-detects-sleep-apnea

Links:
SmartCare
http://smartcare.vlxuk.com/

SleepAp
http://joachim.behar.perso.neuf.fr/SleepAp/

SleepAp: An Automated Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Screening Application for
  Smartphones 
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/icp.jsp?arnumber=6747332

Related:
Young Innovators Develop Apps to Help Others
http://theinstitute.ieee.org/briefings/business/young-innovators-develop-apps-to-help-others