JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

People with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) have a higher risk of developing heart problems. A simple, low-cost device was developed to monitor the Heart Rate (HR) of people with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) during Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) therapy. This device involved attaching a gyroscope to a PAP mask, analysing the gyroscope signals to detect heartbeats and using a Kalman Filter to produce a more accurate and consistent HR signal. In this paper 19 healthy participants wore the modified PAP mask while the mask was connected to a PAP device. Participants lay in three common sleeping positions and underwent two different PAP therapy modes to determine if these affected the accuracy of the HR estimation. Prior to the PAP device being turned on the median HR error was < 5BPM, although the HR estimation error increased when participants lay on their side compared with lying on their back. Using the different PAP therapy modes did not significantly increase the HR error. These results show that monitoring HR from gyroscope signals in a PAP mask is possible during PAP therapy for different sleeping positions and PAP therapy modes, suggesting long term HR monitoring of OSA during PAP therapy may be possible.