Signal collection for off-line processing with a wearable monitor
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation and optimization of a wearable technology for detection of body sounds related to apnoea in epilepsy.
IRAS ID
198998
Contact name
John Duncan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Univeristy College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Research Summary
Breathing may stop during epileptic seizures. This can be very dangerous and lead to death, which may be prevented if the person is resuscitated.
Presently available devices for monitoring breathing are not suitable for long term home use as they are bulky and uncomfortable.
We have created a miniature sensing device that monitors body sounds, including those generated by breathing. The device comprises a microphone, two small batteries, and very low power integrated circuits to optimize the quality of the signal and wireless transmission, and to reduce interference/artefacts. The wireless signal from the sensor is received and stored in a customized base station.
We are using that signal to carry out research aiming to create algorithms that are highly accurate in detecting apnoea (cessation of breathing). Eventually, once the performance of these algorithms is satisfactory in epilepsy patients, they will be implemented in real time so that an alarm can be generated when a potentially dangerous apnoea has been automatically detected. A previous pilot clinical study showed that the performance of a former version of this device compared favourably with that of the standard monitoring equipment used in hospital within the context of polysomnography for sleep studies. It is now important to establish whether the level of performance remains in signals from epilepsy patients during seizures, and if not to iterate on the design of the algorithms to make them suitable for application in epilepsy.
We will achieve this by inviting patients, who are to be admitted to the UK NHNN long term EEG monitoring unit for recording of seizures, to wear the new miniaturized monitor, in addition to the standard monitoring equipment. The signals of the latter will be used as the gold standard to mark clinically relevant physiological events, in order to assess the performance of the algorithms under research.Summary of Results
Breathing may stop during epileptic seizures. This can be very dangerous and lead to death, which may be prevented if the person is resuscitated.
Presently available devices for monitoring breathing are not suitable for long term home use as they are bulky and uncomfortable.
We created a miniature sensing device that is placed on the neck with adhesive gel and monitors the sound of breathing.
This was used in 65 individuals with epilepsy and we showed that the interruption of breathing that may occur in epileptic seizures was detected by this device.
We need to do some more work to make the device smaller and lighter, and to then evaluate this in a domestic setting.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
16/WA/0319
Date of REC Opinion
5 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion