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How would you do a sleep apnea detector?

There was an op-ed column touching on the subject of dehydration in the July/Aug Medical Design News magazine, not on their web site so ripped off in its entirety below, in the interest of public health:

Thirsty? Want Water or Coke? Read the facts and then decide.

Water

  1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (This likely applies to half the world population.)
  2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.

  1. Even mild dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as

3%.

  1. One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of dieters participating in a U-Washington study.

  2. Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

  1. Preliminary research indicates that 8 to 10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

  1. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on a computer screen or on printed pages.

  1. Drinking five glasses of water daily can decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45% and slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%. These drinkers are also 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Coke

  1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid with a pH of 2.8. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.

  1. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for 1 hr, then flush clean. Citric acid in the soft drink removes stains from vitreous china.

  2. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

  1. To clean corrosion from car-battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.

  2. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.
  3. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from a car's windshield.

Abstracted from various Internet sites.

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Reply to
Glen Walpert
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Oddly enough, I'm better now than when I was 15kg lighter and running half-marathons. But I know what you mean.

Cheers.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

Long ago "Electronic design" described a system where the movement of a laboratory rat was monitored by placing 2 capacitor plates at the and bottom of its cage. It claimed that it was sensitive enough to detect breathing. Maybe it can be scaled up to humans. It is contactless and non-intrusive. Of course it needs filtering to separate the breating form other movements

Wim

Reply to
Wim Ton

Mine doesn't, unless, maybe, it does internally for regulation purposes. It's a Sullivan machine.

boB

Reply to
boB

Hmmm, interesting. More food for thought (although I don't want to put on any more weight...)

Cheers.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

You are correct in that most CPAP machines monitor pressure at a point close to output that feeds the tube going to the mask. That pressure sensor always see a constant pressure (that's why it is there, as part of the pressure regulator). and thus is useless as a detector of apnea. Note that "sensor" doesn't always mean "electronic"; it might very well be a mechanical pressure regulator valve.

Some machines do make a recirding of sorts, but they typically monitor time spent with the mask on and time spent with it off while the machine is running, and total running hours. This helps to identify patients whomtrow off the mask during the night. Needless top say, a CPAP manufacrurer can put all sorts of extra monitoring and recording features in, but that the ordinary run-of-the-mill CPAP machine is simple a source of constant pressure. Add-on sensors and recorders are no more a universal part of the basic machine than humidifioers are.

Getting back to the topic at hand, a low-cost home apne detector would be a Very Good Thing. It would result in many more people getting a proper sleep study after finf=ding out there was a problem. It would have to be designed to minimize false negatives; you don't want the low-cost apnea detector to tell you that you areOK when you are not. Flase positives are less important unless thay are so common that people percieve the unit as crying wolf.

Reply to
Guy Macon

This is not quite the same thing (you gotta go in to get rigged), but ambulatory systems have been around for 25 years. Inductance plethysmograph (~400kHz) determines the cross-sectional area of your abdomen and thorax. Deltas are derived with a PLL. Back then, it was recorded with a Walkman-like recorder, PWMed and FMed to get 8hr on a C-120.

Reply to
JeffM

It might at least get the person to go to a sleep lab and have them properly diagnosed. they're not going to just sell you a machine I don't think.

boB

Reply to
boB

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