Continuous respiratory monitoring device for detection of sleep apnea episodes

Because sleep disorders are common in a significant part of the entire population with diseases of the central nervous system, continuous monitoring of respiration during sleep has an important role in early diagnosis and treatment. The paper describes the research for the design and realization of a flexible, scalable and cost-effective medical monitoring device suitable to be used with patients suffering from sleep disorders, especially obstructive sleep apnea episodes. The monitoring device contains commercially available sensors for respiratory signal measurement, a data acquisition and processing module with microcontroller, and a Tablet PC. The respiration signal is acquired by using a commercially available piezoelectric thoracic belt and processing by the microcontroller in order to compute the respiratory frequency and to detect the sleep apnea episodes. On the Tablet PC a software application displays the patient's respiratory frequency and activates the alerts in the interface when an apnea episode is detected. A prototype of the described respiratory monitoring device has been developed, implemented and partially tested.