Automated, Assistive, Non-Contact Sleep Quality Monitor for Individuals with Alzheimer Disease

Innovative Design Labs, Inc., Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract Proposed is an at-home sleep monitoring system specifically designed for caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to remotely monitor sleep disturbances and trends. Significance: As of 2017 approximately 5.5 million Americans live with AD and the number is expected to increase to 13.8 million by 2050, costing the US $1.1 trillion annually. Individuals with AD manifest many symptoms including cognitive decline, mood/behavioral changes and, of greatest relevance here, sleep disturbances. Studies indicate that approximately 1 in 3 patients with AD suffer from sleep and other nighttime disturbances such as insomnia and disruption of sleep, wandering, day/night confusion, repeatedly leaving bed, nightmares, and hallucinations. These disturbances often lead to reduced health and lower quality of life for persons with AD and additionally cause tremendous stress and sleeplessness for informal (unpaid) caregivers. Estimates suggest that there are more than 10 million adult caregivers of persons with AD or other dementias, providing an annual 18.2 billion hours of informal assistance, valued at $230.1 billion. Caregiving is taxing as evidenced by the fact that 59% of informal caregivers of people with AD or other dementias rated the emotional stress of caregiving as high to very high. The burden of caregiving is compounded by the fact that current methods of sleep quality assessment are either inaccurate, time consuming, or inappropriate for use with those who have AD. Hypothesis: We hypothesize that a system which allows for practical, long-term, remote monitoring of sleep quality metrics for patients with AD would improve their quality of life and reduce the burden of caregiving. Specific Aims: To prove the feasibility of the proposed system in Phase I IDL will 1) Determine stakeholder requirements through round table discussions; 2) Develop prototype hardware capable of measuring sleep quality; 3) Collect sensor and truth data from human subjects; 4) Develop and test signal processing algorithms for measures of sleep quality. The overall Phase I effort will demonstrate the ability of the proposed system to assess sleep quality and demonstrate feasibility of its use by caregivers of community- dwelling patients with AD.