Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Respiratory
Patent
1998-02-19
1999-11-23
O'Connor, Cary
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Respiratory
600529, 600586, A61B 508
Patent
active
059891939
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a device and method for detecting and recording the snoring of a patient.
BACKGROUND ART
There are a number of diseases and disorders which only manifest their presence in sleep or at least markedly worsen during sleep. One sleep linked disorder is obstructive sleep apnea. A patient suffering this disorder undergoes while asleep repeated episodes of obstruction of their upper airway. During these episodes of obstruction there is a period, which can typically range between 10-40 seconds, when there is no airflow through the airway into the lungs of a patient. This state usually terminates due to arousal of the patient.
In mild cases of sleep apnea, a sufferer may only undergo a few episodes of obstruction over a night of 6-8 hours of sleep. In more severe cases, the episodes can occur repeatedly with tests showing that some sufferers undergo 400-500 episodes of obstruction in a single night's sleep. Such high levels of obstruction and the resulting repeated falls in oxygen level to the brain can lead to major health problems, and sufferers are known to have increased mortality, probably because of increased morbidity due to cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Sufferers also exhibit high levels of daytime sleepiness which increases the risk of a sufferer being involved in a traffic or industrial accident. It is now recognised that at any one time about 10% of males and about 5% of females suffer from some form of sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea is now widely recognized by its array of daytime symptoms including daytime sleepiness and also by witnessed episodes of "stop breathing" by a bed partner. Heavy snoring is, however, the most common and characteristic sign of sleep apnea.
Snoring is almost universally known and is characterised by noise generated in the throat of a sleeping individual. Snoring is in fact so tightly coupled with sleep that its presence is a positive and diagnostic indication that an individual is asleep.
Snoring is a noise which is typically generated by vibration of the air conduction tube at the level of the throat. It usually occurs during inspiration (breathing in) but sometimes occurs during expiration (breathing out) and sometimes during both phases of the sleeping cycle. Snoring occurs when, with sleep, there is a loss of muscle tone in the muscles of the throat which are needed to keep the throat open. This loss in muscle tone narrows the air passages leading to inadequate levels of airflow into the lungs. This drop in airflow is detected and the body's reflexes automatically produce increased efforts to breathe. These increased efforts produce greater degrees of suction pressure in the air passages which then in turn cause the walls of the throat to vibrate and flutter. Snoring commonly originates in the oropharyngeal area of the throat. This is the region where the cavity of the mouth and a cavity from the nasal airway join to form one tube at the oral region of the pharynx. In this region, the soft palate which is a mobile structure which hangs down from the roof of the mouth in the back of the throat, acts to determine which of the two pathways are connected to the breathing tube. Most commonly, snoring is generated when the soft palate flutters. This fluttering leads to pressure oscillations within the airway and sounds are then generated when other structures in and around the airway are vibrated producing harmonics which can be heard.
The underlying physical properties of snoring start, therefore, when the airway flutters at a critical location resulting in the suction pressure in the airway also oscillating. This pressure oscillation radiates in all directions, including both outwards through the nose and mouth, and inwards back into the lungs and chest wall. The pressure oscillation causes other tissues to oscillate and vibrate and harmonics are formed causing audible sound.
The audible sound which is widely known a snoring is the result of vibration of a range of tissues and the harmonics which are then
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Marmor II Charles
O'Connor Cary
Somed Pty Limited
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