Devices and methods for sleep disorder diagnosis and treatment

What is this patent about?

’269 is related to the field of integrated sleep diagnosis and treatment systems, specifically focusing on devices that monitor and treat sleep apnea. Traditional sleep studies often require expensive, overnight stays in specialized clinics and rely on subjective questionnaires or static physiological tests that fail to account for real-time changes in a patient’s condition. The background context highlights a need for a more responsive, closed-loop system that can adjust therapeutic interventions—such as air pressure or medication—based on the immediate physiological state of the user during sleep.

The underlying idea behind ’269 is the integration of real-time diagnostic monitoring with active treatment delivery to create a dynamic feedback loop. By combining data from respiratory airflow sensors with other physiological inputs, such as pulse oximetry or EEG signals, the system can quantitatively determine the severity of apnea events as they occur. This inventive insight allows the device to not only record sleep architecture but to actively mitigate symptoms by adjusting the treatment intensity—whether through pneumatic pressure or chemical dosing—in direct response to the detected level of respiratory distress.

The claims of ’269 focus on a system architecture that pairs a data acquisition module with a positive airway pressure (PAP) device to calculate and transmit sleep disorder symptom data. Specifically, the independent claims describe a configuration where a signal processing module receives data from a pulse oximeter and feeds it to a PAP device, which contains its own internal airflow sensor. A processor then synthesizes these two distinct data streams to generate a severity index or symptom data, which is subsequently transmitted via a wireless transceiver to a remote location, such as a base station, PDA, or an internet site for clinical review.

In practice, the invention operates by utilizing a blower and a patient interface, such as a mask or nasal cannula, to deliver pressurized air while simultaneously monitoring the subject's oxygen saturation and breathing patterns. The system employs advanced signal processing, including recursively fit ARMAX models and time-frequency analysis, to predict the onset of apnea events before they fully manifest. This predictive capability enables the controller to preemptively adjust the blower's output or trigger a pharmaceutical dosing mechanism, ensuring that the treatment is precisely calibrated to the patient's needs at any given moment during the night.

This approach differs from prior solutions by moving beyond simple, fixed-pressure CPAP machines or standalone diagnostic recorders that require manual data retrieval. By integrating a wireless module transceiver directly into the treatment enclosure, the system facilitates the seamless transfer of both symptom severity and usage data to remote monitoring platforms. Furthermore, the ability to adjust chemical treatment via a pharmaceutical agent based on real-time physiological feedback represents a significant departure from traditional mechanical-only interventions, providing a multi-modal path to managing complex sleep disorders.