57 results about "Deglutition apnea" patented technology

A method and apparatus for estimating a respiratory rate of a patient. The method comprises the steps of recording respiratory sounds of the patient, deriving a plurality of respiratory rates from the recorded sounds using a plurality of respiratory rate estimating methods and applying a heuristic to the plurality of derived respiratory rates, the heuristic selecting one of the derived respiratory rates. The selected respiratory rate is the estimated respiratory rate. The apparatus comprises at least one sensor recording respiratory sounds of the patient, a plurality of respiratory rate processors, each of the processors comprising a respiratory rate calculating method, a heuristic means for selecting one of the calculated respiratory rates and a display means for displaying the selected respiratory as the estimated respiratory rate.

Patient may operate a CPAP system to deliver appropriate airway pressure home. A patient's apnea problem can be diagnosed at home without supervision with a CPAP device which delivers a continuously minimum appropriate pressure for substantially the entire period of therapy.

An apparatus is provided for controlling air supplied under pressure to a patient suffering from sleep disorders such as apnoea. The apparatus measures and / or calculates the inspiratory air flow, volume and pressure to the airway. Controlled pressurized air is supplied to the patient's upper anatomical airway, wherein the apparatus measures the air flow and pressure to the airway. The apparatus determines whether to increase or decrease the pressure to the patient's airway based on a determination of one or more factors, such as the occurrence of hypopnoea, hyperventilation, obstructive or central apnoea, air leakage and acoustical vibrations. Occurrences of events representing a sleep problem may be stored by the apparatus and retrieved by a clinician at a later date.

Described here are devices for altering the flow of air in a respiratory cavity such as the mouth and nostrils of the nose. These methods and devices may be useful for affecting a physiologic benefit in patients suffering from a variety of medical diseases, particularly those that may benefit from “pursed-lip” breathing and non-invasive ventilation, such as COPD, heart failure, sleep apnea, and other medical disorders. The devices are typically removable devices that may be placed over or in a respiratory cavity to increase resistance to airflow within the respiratory cavity. Resistance to expiration may be selectively increased relative to inspiration. Removable oral and removable nasal devices are described. Oral and nasal devices that filter inhaled airflow of debris and allergens are also provided. A nasal device that increases patency of the nares is also provided.

Apparatus for reducing obstructive sleep apnea, snoring and / or nasal drainage. One apparatus includes an upper member fitting the interior and exterior surfaces of a user's upper dentition, and a lower member fitting similarly adjacent a user's lower dentition. The lower member includes molar extensions projecting away from the lower member. The upper member includes upper molar extensions projecting away from the upper member and toward the lower molar extensions so that when the user bites or clenches, the upper right and lower right extensions impinge on one another in substantially overlapping fashion, as do the molar upper left and lower left extensions. The upper and lower members have an anterior shape to form a gap sufficient for the user's tongue to extend into the gap, and each molar extension may include a magnet. Methods of using the apparatus and kits to reduce sleep apnea, snoring, and / or nasal drainage.

Methods and devices for the treatment of airway obstruction, sleep apnea and snoring are disclosed. In some embodiments, a glossal suspension system includes a tissue tensioner that includes a suture loop made of one or more sutures configured to suspend the tongue with at least one portion configured to extend laterally through the tongue, and a securement mechanism configured to be attached to a patient's mandible that includes one more adjustment assemblies for engaging the one or more sutures and adjusting tension on the suture loop. Various tethers and anchors that can be used with the glossal suspension system are also disclosed.

There is disclosed a system and method for treating obstructive sleep apnea by terminating an obstructive sleep apnea event before the cessation of breathing occurs. The system comprises one or more microphones capable of detecting breathing sounds within an airway of a person. The microphones generate signals representative of the breathing sounds and send the signals to a controller. The controller uses digital signal processing to identify at least one signal pattern that is associated with a breathing pattern of the person that occurs at the onset of an obstructive sleep apnea event. When the controller detects a signal pattern that indicates the onset of an obstructive apnea event, the controller sends an alarm signal to a stimulus generator. The stimulus generator creates a stimulus (an electric current, a sound, a vibrator, a flashing light, etc.) to cause the sleeping person to move in a manner to terminate the obstructive sleep apnea event before cessation of breathing occurs. The obstructive sleep apnea event is terminated without waking the sleeping person and without causing the sleeping person physiological stress associated with cessation of breathing.

The multiple-air bag snore and apnea treating pillow consists of alt right air bag, left air bag, top air bag, neck air bag and filling, and the air bags are not communicated and provided with air hose separately. The treating apparatus has microprocessor to control the pressure modules based on sensor signals and inflates and deflates the air bags according to the set program. The sensor signal representing the snore and apnea may be the combination of snore and posture, the combination of snore, breath wave and blood oxygen saturation degree, sleep PSG, or others. The breath and posture sensor may be zoned air bag type mattress sensor or sensing belt type mattress sensor. When snore or apnea is detected, the air bags are controlled to inflate or deflate to alter the sleep posture or to wake the sleeper, so as to stop snore or apnea effectively.

A patient's obstructive sleep apnea is treated by identifying a patient with sleep apnea attributable at least in part to movement of a base of a tongue of said patient toward a pharyngeal wall of said patient. The method includes identifying a region in the tongue extending from a mandibular-geniohyoid interface to the base of the tongue and stiffening a tissue of the tongue throughout the identified region.

An oral sleep apnea device is a dental appliance designed to advance the lower jaw of a user suffering from sleep apnea while reducing lingual discomfort and the risk of harmful tooth movement and rotation during use. The present invention accomplishes this through the use of a maxillary and a mandibular dental plate coupled to the upper and lower jaw, respectively, without direct contact with the incisal or labial surfaces of the anterior teeth. Both appliances comprise a lingual surface mount. The maxillary dental plate comprises an advancement mechanism. The advancement mechanism being operatively engaged to the mandibular dental plate repositions the mandibular plate to a forward location relative to the maxillary dental plate. During the repositioning of the mandibular dental plate the mandibular lingual surface mount distributes pressure evenly to the lingual surfaces on the lower jaw, reducing localized pressure points which can cause tooth movement.

An apparatus is provided for controlling air supplied under pressure to a patient suffering from sleep disorders such as apnoea. The apparatus measures and / or calculates the inspiratory air flow, volume and pressure to the airway. Controlled pressurized air is supplied to the patient's upper anatomical airway, wherein the apparatus measures the air flow and pressure to the airway. The apparatus determines whether to increase or decrease the pressure to the patient's airway based on a determination of one or more factors, such as the occurrence of hypopnoea, hyperventilation, obstructive or central apnoea, air leakage and acoustical vibrations. Occurrences of events representing a sleep problem may be stored by the apparatus and retrieved by a clinician at a later date.

A sleep assist article and associated method for establishing proper breathing patterns. An adhesive tape body is releasably secured upon a face of a person and exhibits an inner aperture defined by an inner edge surface, and through which upper and lower lips of the person extend. The body establishes a check valve in a first inhalation stage, to facilitate breathing through the person's nasal passages while inhibiting inhaling orally. The body further operates to permit exhaling orally, and while concurrently inhibiting nasal exhalation. The device optimizes an oxygen intake percentage within a user's lungs, as well as an associated oxygen saturation during repetitive breathing cycles associated with an induced sleep pattern and to improve sleep cycles, reduce incidences of sleep apnea, and to provide other health benefits.

A method for detecting sleep-related Apneas, Hypopneas, heart rate, body movements, and snoring events of a sleeping person. An online, adaptive detection system conditions and automatically analyzes physiological, movement-related and ambient acoustical signals to count valid snoring events, non-breathing events and calculates patient AHI (Apnea Hypopnea Index). Patient respiration, snoring, movements, presence and heart rate are continuously monitored, recorded and transmitted without requiring any sensors, electrodes, leads, cuffs, or cannulas to be attached to the patient. Additional benefits include improving the reliability of Apnea / Hypopnea detection in the patient home environment, and utilizing the method and the device for Apnea / Hypopnea and snoring positional therapy.

The invention discloses a sleep snoring sound classification detecting method based on depth learning. The method mainly comprises the steps of collecting sleep sound signals of a patient to be detected all night long through a sensor, detecting sonic sections in the sleep sound signals, and obtaining a sonic section map in the sleep sound signals; adopting depth learning for performing snoring sound and non-snoring sound classification on the sonic section map, and reserving a pure-snoring sound recognition result; then, adopting the depth learning for classifying four types of snore sounds for the pure-snoring sound recognition result, and completing automatic recognition and detection on snoring sounds of the patient suffering from obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS); according to the snoring sound recognizing and detecting result, counting the number of snoring sounds of each type of the patient to be detected all night long, and obtaining an AHI index of the patientto be detected all night long. The invention further discloses a detecting system of the sleep snoring sound classification detecting method based on depth learning. The method and system can effectively and accurately evaluate whether or not a snoring object falls ill and evaluate the illness degree, and data references are provided for the patient suffering from the OSAHS.

The invention provides a sleep breath pause judging device, which can capture phonomena of chest motion stopping and belly motion continuing in a breath pause state in a non-contact manner when a person is sleeping and thus accurately judge sleep breath pauses. The judging method by the sleep breath pause judging device comprises the following steps of emitting microwaves to the chest and the belly of an asleep detected person; performing Fourier transform on the microwave Doppler frequency shift signals obtained from the return waves; comparing the frequency components of the fundamental waves and the odd harmonics; and judging whether the asleep detected person has a normal breath state or not based on the comparison result. Thus the breath pause state of the asleep detected person can be accurately judged.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for determining the occurrence of apnoeas or hypopneas from ECG signal data alone. The method is carried out by apparatus configured to acquire ECG signals from a sleeping subject, transform the signals to data, and extract ECG features relevant to estimate breathing effort for the determination of respiratory events characteristic of apnoeas and hypopneas. The extracted ECG features are correlates of breathing efforts and are used as surrogate measures of breathing or respiratory events. The method may include calculating an AHI or apnoea / hypopnea index. The method may classify apnoeas into obstructive or central apnoeas.

Apparatus for reducing obstructive sleep apnea, snoring and / or nasal drainage. One apparatus includes an upper member fitting the interior and exterior surfaces of a user's upper dentition, and a lower member fitting similarly adjacent a user's lower dentition. The lower member includes molar extensions projecting away from the lower member. The upper member includes upper molar extensions projecting away from the upper member and toward the lower molar extensions so that when the user bites or clenches, the upper right and lower right extensions impinge on one another in substantially overlapping fashion, as do the molar upper left and lower left extensions. The upper and lower members have an anterior shape to form a gap sufficient for the user's tongue to extend into the gap, and each molar extension may include a magnet. Methods of using the apparatus and kits to reduce sleep apnea, snoring, and / or nasal drainage.

The invention discloses a method and system for classification and detection of sleep snoring. The method includes the steps of picking up the sleep snoring of a patient all night long, and extracting each snoring signal according to the sleep snoring signals of the patient all night long; calculating related features of fourth types of snoring including the snoring before and after a breathing disorder event, apnea snoring, hypopnea snoring and general snoring in the sleep snoring all night long; performing feature dimension reduction using principal component analysis (PCA), classifying the sleep snoring all night long respectively according to the snoring before and after the breathing disorder event, apnea snoring, hypopnea snoring and general snoring through a multi-class support vector machine (SVM), and realizing the recognition of the four types of snoring; and conducting statistics on the snoring signals all night long to obtain statistical results of the number of times of the four types of snoring, and predicting an AHI value according to the statistical results. According to the invention, the automatic classification of four types of snoring is realized accurately, the number of breathing disorder events all night long is determined by using the classification of snoring and the types of snoring before and after to predict the AHI value, and a data reference is provided for the patient with the OSAHS.

A garment designed to discourage supine sleep which intensifies snoring and apnea levels in some people. Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Snoring occur when the tongue and throat muscles relax during sleep. At that point they fall back and block the airways causing the apneas and worsening snoring. A significant percentage of snoring and OSA is position related and symptoms worsen by sleeping in a supine position. Garment or other embodiments have a (partial) less than ½ of the circumference mounted pouch which allows the insert to self center and pivot on the spine and have movement between shoulders as the user is sleeping and attempts to move towards the back from his or her side. The placement at lower neck area presses slightly against the spine to influence head to tilt up and slightly close mouth while sleeping thereby increasing the airway opening. The insert while comfortable to sleep against is of enough diameter or depth and made of a cushion type of material to discourage supine and encourage side sleeping without any discomfort to user. The garment or other embodiments have frontal body fasteners for ease of putting on and taking off.

A method and apparatus for diagnosing sleep apnea and for comfortably fitting an oral device to treat the condition. The patient is screened to reduce snoring using a device which changes the airway, and then using an airway dilation simulator having sequentially sized elements to determine the mandibular position maximizing the upper airway dimension. An oral device is then fabricated to retain the maximum position during sleep.

Existing monitors for apnea miss many serious events because they do not adequately distinguish the heart signal in chest impedance from the respiratory signal. Described herein is a respiratory monitoring system and method for improved detection and response to apnea, particularly in a NICU setting but also useful in a home setting. This method filters from the chest impedance the part of the impedance that is caused by the beating of the heart in a human subject, and then identifies in real time significant silence in the filtered chest impedance signal, including determining the probability of apnea. If the probability of apnea exceeds a threshold value, the apneic subject can be stimulated using automated interactions such as a vibrating mattress or air blower.

The invention discloses a household preliminary detecting system of SAHS (Sleep Apnea Hypopnea Syndrome). The household preliminary detecting system comprises a collecting device and an intelligent detecting device, wherein the collecting device is used for collecting snoring audio data of a patient; the intelligent detecting device is used for receiving the snoring audio data and carrying out preliminary detection; the collecting device is connected with the intelligent detecting device; and the intelligent detecting device comprises a collecting module which is used for collecting snoring data, a detecting module which is used for calculating an AHI (Apnea Hypopnea Index) value, and a judging module which is used for presetting a threshold value, and the patient can be determined to suffer from suspected SAHS if a current AHI value is larger than the threshold value.

The identification of obstructed breathing, including an apnea condition and a hypopnea condition, is disclosed. A signal representative of a flow rate of therapeutic gas being delivered to the patient is received. A peak flow value and a minimum flow value over a predetermined time window encompassing a plurality of respiration cycles is derived. A polynomial difference equation from the peak flow values and the minimum flow values is generated, and a respiration index from a minimum of the polynomial difference equation is derived. The apnea and / or hypopnea condition is indicated based upon a comparison of the respiration index to a predefined obstruction threshold over a predefined obstruction time period.

The present invention discloses an apparatus and method for monitoring an individual for an irregular respiratory event. The present invention discloses a sleep apnea monitor for monitoring an individual for an apneic event. The monitor includes a microphone for detecting tracheal sounds related to respiration so that irregular lengths of time between such sounds may activate an alert of the medical condition. The method of monitoring an individual for an irregular respiratory event includes attaching the monitor in a nonintrusive manner to a location around the throat area.

The invention discloses a wireless monitoring device for infant apnea, which comprises a respiratory signal detection module for emitting microwave signals to detect infant respiratory conditions, an apnea detection module for comparing detected respiratory signals and converting frequency and a sound and light alarm module for comparing with a preset threshold and triggering an alarm. The wireless monitoring device for infant apnea wirelessly detects infant respiratory signals and then converts the signals to respiratory frequency signals and voltage signals. After the signals are compared with the preset threshold, when frequency is found to be too low so that apnea is caused, the alarm signals are triggered. By means of the sound and light alarm, guardians are informed and correct sleep positions of infants timely or do other treatments to ensure normal respiration of the infants.

The invention relates to a collecting method of physiological parameters of people in a lying state, an apnea awakening method and a device. When one person is in the lying state, surface of the thoracic cavity will deform along with the rhyme of heartbeat or breathing so as to generate different pressure for the mattress on which the human body lied. A pressure sensor is used for detecting the generated pressure and outputs voltage signals. The output pressure signals are filtered and shaped, so alternating-current and direct-current components are output. An ARM processor performs AD conversion continuously for the output alternating-current and direct-current components so as to obtain different data signals, and obtain different states of the human at present after performing analysis for the data signals. According to the invention, the people can turn over or lean to his / her side at will in the lying state without effects on collecting of the physiological parameters; collecting of respiratory rate and heartbeat rate of the to-be-monitored people can be finished simultaneously; and favorable data support is provided for health analysis of the human body.

The invention relates to a device for determining and interfering sleep apnea. The device comprises a smart band and a mobile terminal communicated with the smart band through Bluetooth; the smart band is used for monitoring and collecting blood oxygen signals, the blood oxygen signals are subjected to AD conversion and spectral analysis to obtain the blood oxygen level, then, the blood oxygen level is transmitted to the mobile terminal through the Bluetooth, and the mobile terminal judges whether or not the apnea occurs and sends data to a cloud to be stored through WiFi; when the apnea occurs, and the mobile terminal starts a voice alerter or sends an instruction to the smart band to start a vibration motor on the smart band to interfere the apnea. The device is small in size, convenient to use and less in monitoring data, the apnea in the sleeping process can be monitored, judged and interfered accurately, and the sleep quality is improved.