April 2000

SLEEP APNEA:
For A Safer Sleep

Mike Savic, professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his students have developed an accurate and affordable computer signal processing system that can identify sleep apnea, an irregularity that causes people to stop breathing during sleep.

Savic’s method of diagnosis involves “teaching” a computer to understand normal breathing sounds through signal processing. It can then pick up irregularities in breathing and snoring patterns that cause sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is often untreated because people don’t realize they have it, Savic says. Presently, testing for the disease is expensive, time-consuming, and usually involves primary care physicians, pulmonologists, and neurologists.

“Because millions of people are affected by the disease, there is a great demand for improved diagnostic techniques,” Savic says. “We used a sleep lab for our tests, but that’s not a viable diagnostic option for most people. It’s uncomfortable. We hope to make a self-contained device that can sit on a nightstand so that testing can be done in the comfort of the patient’s home.”

Savic and his students have been working in conjunction with Dr. Simon Spivack, specialist for lung diseases at Albany Medical College, and Dr. Douglas Phelps, director of the Sleep Disorders Program at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany.

Sleep apnea affects more than 12 million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. Untreated, the irregularity can cause high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disease, memory problems, weight gain, impotency, and headaches.

CONTACT: Theresa Bourgeois, (518) 276-2840, bourgt@rpi.edu

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