Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Screening Using Mobile Health Technology

Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a serious condition where sufferers repeatedly stop breathing whilst asleep. An estimated 4% of the global adult population has OSA but up to 80% are undiagnosed. Symptoms include daytime tiredness and inability to concentrate. Importantly, OSA is a co-morbidity and independent risk factor for stroke, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It is estimated that each undiagnosed sufferer costs the healthcare system an additional $100,000 per year over non-OSA-sufferers. However, it is easily treatable once diagnosed and thus there is an incentive for developing better screening and diagnostic tools.

Our goal is to develop a quick, reliable and inexpensive screening method, enabling more people to be screened for OSA. For that purpose we make use of mobile health technology. The SmartCare Sleep system consists of a mobile app, a cloud server and a medical pulse oximeter that connect to the phone via Bluetooth. Evaluation of our algorism predicted OSA with Ac = 85.6%, Se = 79.2% and Sp = 92.6%.