ANALYSIS ON PARAMETERS AFFECTING SLEEP APNEA & CONTROL MEASURES USING LOW COST POSITIVE AIR PRESSURE SUPPLY MACHINE

Sandeep Reddy Av

Abstract: Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts for at least ten seconds. Apnea may occur 5 to 30 times or more in patients during sleep. Sleep apnea is diagnosed with an overnight sleep test called a polysomnogram, or "sleep study". More than eighteen million Americans suffer from sleep apnea (ASAA), and it is estimated conservatively that ten million remain undiagnosed. There are many ways to control sleep apnea i.e., through respiratory devices (CPAP, Bi-PAP), surgery on mouth and throat, Oral Appliance Therapy (OAT) etc. These respiratory devices are not self controlled which disturbs the patients sleep and should be turn ON throughout the night continuously In this Research, the objective is to develop a Bi-PAP device (Automatic Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure machine) for the purpose of detection and controlling of sleep apnea disease using Atmel 89c51 Microcontroller programming. Here, a new methodology is followed to detect the sleep apnea condition in a patient by using active Infrared source and Infrared detector. The program is specifically to control the functioning of the Bi-PAP and is shown to be effective at responding to a patient’s breathing cycle. Central sleep apnea can also be detected and alarmed such that this ability could prove critic during emergency situations. In particular, the current Bi-PAP machine operates depending up on the patient’s necessity for positive air pressure. Therefore the BiPAP acting time on a patient can be reduced and hence, BiPAP side effects can be minimized. A Humidifier is also engaged along with saturated oxygen line to clear patients’ airway. Based on the results, the Automatic BiPAP system is shown to be more effective at responding sleep apnea condition by giving alarm signal. It is economically good and maintenance free. Exclusively, in this system Apneas both in infants and adults are detected by the adjustable sensing time. Current design acts positively on demerits of existing methodologies. The system has been validated on a single live subject in the Sleep Research Laboratory. Finally, it is found that this fully functional Bi-PAP is compatible for both home & hospital usage. Development of this device in several aspects will be a great achievement.

Keywords: SLEEP APNEA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2012.0101009