The United States of America, as Represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services

College of William and Mary

John B Delos

Douglas E Lake

Hoshik Lee

Abigail Flower

Randall Moorman

Existing monitors for apnea miss many serious events because they do not adequately distinguish the heart signal in chest impedance from the respiratory signal. Described herein is a respiratory monitoring system and method for improved detection and response to apnea, particularly in a NICU setting but also useful in a home setting. This method filters from the chest impedance the part of the impedance that is caused by the beating of the heart in a human subject, and then identifies in real time significant silence in the filtered chest impedance signal, including determining the probability of apnea. If the probability of apnea exceeds a threshold value, the apneic subject can be stimulated using automated interactions such as a vibrating mattress or air blower.

Method and system for detecting apnea

Method, system, and computer program method for detecting pathological fluctuations of physiological signals to diagnose human illness. The method comprises performing a sliding window analysis to find sequences in physiological signal data that match amplitude- and duration-adjusted versions of a template function to within a specified tolerance.

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Williamsburg, VA, United States of America

John B Delos