What are sleep studies?Sleep studies are tests that clinicians use to determine if patients have sleep disorders or problems with their sleep that can affect their daily lives. The typical sleep study, which often costs at least $1,000 per night, is done in a controlled environment such as a hotel room, where physiological measurements such as brain waves, eye movements, muscle movements, heart rate, and respiratory rate (polysomnography) are recorded overnight. Because the patient is in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable environment, they may act atypically as they try to sleep. As a result, the data is confounded and the clinician does not get an accurate understanding of the patient’s actual sleep habits. The patient may begin to sleep normally over time, but at such a high price per night, doing a multiple night sleep study away from home is undesirable.
Home sleep study devices currently only use electrodes on the frontal lobe of the patient to collect EEG data. While the data has been proven to be largely in agreement with polysomnography data in determining sleep stages, using only frontal lobe electrodes cannot detect all of the changes that occur when transitioning through sleep stages. For example, the alpha wave changes in the occipital lobe that occur during the wake to light sleep stage cannot be detected by the frontal lobe electrodes. Collecting frontal and occipital lobe EEG data would greatly improve the accuracy of marking sleep stages. |
Project ScopeDesign an EEG-based device for use in a home setting and can accurately record and store sleep EEG data over the course of multiple nights. This device must incorporate occipital lobe EEG coverage and should allow patients and clinicians to download and view the data. The device should also be more affordable than a sleep study to patients.
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