ApLab II
The goal of this project is to develop our third device and a sensor that can be used to monitor/diagnose a patient for sleep disordered breathing beyond the ApLab and for which CPT coding exists. Five signals will be monitored for assessment of the patient. These include heart rate, pulse Oximeter, nasal pressure, orientation and circumference of the abdomen or chest. A block diagram of the sensor hardware configuration is shown in Figure 1 below.
The heart rate, pulse Oximeter and diaphragm motion sensors will come from an OEM. The nasal pressure and accelerometer will be based on available MEMS sensors. The signals from these sensors will be processed via a low power micro-controller system on chip. The processed signals will be saved to non-volatile memory.
Once a sleep session is over, the data collected will be downloaded to a PC by connecting the sensor to a USB port that will power the device and download the data from its nonvolatile memory. This will be done using a USB link.
Theory of Operation
The current approach to diagnosis sleep disordered breathing is to attend a sleep clinic where multiple physiological parameters are measured. A much simplified screening approach is to measure the most critical parameter breathing, extremely well, thereby eliminating the other redundant channels that measure consequences of not breathing. Post screening with the ApLab II, we will be able to offer a home use device that meets the 4 channel requirement for CPT reimbursement and becomes a source of non-attended revenue for the sleep lab.
Technology
Our Company´s founder is an inventor of the ApLab. The knowledge and experience gained in that process will be used to create a proprietary device that will be optimized for the ApLab II. Further information is available in the patent filed for the ApLab.
Current Competitive Products
Since 2003, there have been several products approved for measuring breathing during sleep. The companies that make these products include Del Mar Reynolds Medical Ltd., Itamar Medical Ltd., Medcare Flaga hf., Advanced Brain Monitoring, Inc., ResMed, Pro-tech Services, Inc., and Respironics, Inc.