WASHINGTON: A team of Indian-American researchers from the University of Washington has developed an app that uses a Smartphone to wirelessly test for obstructive sleep apnoea in a person's bedroom.

Unlike other home sleep aponea tests in use, "ApneaApp" uses inaudible sound waves emanating from the phone's speakers to track breathing patterns without the need of special equipment or sensors attached to the body.

"ApneaApp" turns a Smartphone into an active sonar system that can detect sleep apnoea events.

"It is similar to the way bats navigate. They send out sound signals that hit a target and when those signals bounce back, they know something is there," explained Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, lead author in the UW's department of computer science and engineering.

Tests in a home bedroom setting showed "ApneaApp" works efficiently at distances of up to three feet, in any sleeping position and even when the person is under a blanket.

The clinical study tested the app, that could be available to consumers in the next year or two, on 37 patients.

Researchers put a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone on a corner of the bed during the overnight sleep study.

During nearly 300 hours of testing, the app tracked various respiratory events including central apnoea, obstructive apnoea and hypopnea with between 95 and 99 percent accuracy, compared to intensive polysomnography.
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Source: IANS