Internet of Things (IoT) in the treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).

Abstract

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a common and serious medical condition characterized by interrupted breath during sleep. Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) is the gold-standard treatment for OSA. Patients’ compliance to (CPAP) therapy is essential to get optimal treatment, but CPAP compliance rates are suboptimal. Internet of Things (IoT) is a new concept that enables objects to be connected to each other, sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure. One of the recent IoT applications in health is telemonitoring CPAP.

A 6 weeks study was launched with 71 patients in the sleep unit at Andre Renard clinic, starting from January till the mid February 2016. The aim was to investigate the effect of the switch to an IoT based CPAP (Wi-Fi CPAP) compared to the traditional CPAP treatment used before. Different elements have been studied, adherence rates, effect on hospital work load, effect on hospital informatics and human structure, and impact on time and cost in general.

To overcome the privacy concerns, patients signed a “privacy consent” before treatment initiation.

The results showed increased CPAP adherence rate (96.61%), decreased number of patients who discontinued the treatment (only 2 patients), increased specialist availability, and time saving. The new CPAP was easy to use by both patients and caregivers. It didn’t add additional work to the staff, nor required specific changes in IT or human structure in the clinic.

This study demonstrated initially promising results of the switch from traditional CPAP to Wi-Fi CPAP in the treatment of (OSA)