Treatment Adherence Tracking For Sleep Apnea

SUMMARY

A new mobile health tool for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) using a novel CPAP adherence metric and enables tracking of lifestyle features to support behavior changes to optimize care

The problem: Current methods to evaluate OSA treatment fail to adequately capture CPAP adherence

• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder characterized by recurrent complete or partial upper airway obstruction resulting in reduced oxygen levels at night, sleep fragmentation, and poor sleep quality. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is considered the treatment of choice for OSA. It works by delivering continuous air pressure, preventing upper airway closures during sleep. CPAP can easily be applied using a variety of masks worn on the face at night and is highly efficacious in treating OSA. However, poor adherence to CPAP treatment is a common problem, and thus novel technology and methods are needed for CPAP adherence tracking and supporting patients and providers.

• Effective OSA treatment requires all-night CPAP. But, current CPAP adherence tracking systems (e.g., smartphone apps) simply capture the number of hours the CPAP mask is worn per night and do not account for hours spent in bed without wearing CPAP.

• In clinical practice, according to Medicare criteria, patients who wear their CPAP for 4 hours or more per night for 70% of nights are considered “adherent” to therapy. This metric is arbitrary and could be misleading because the sleep patterns can vary considerably, making it necessary to measure CPAP adherence relative to time spent in bed. Implementing more accurate CPAP adherence goals and guidelines requires patients to quantify CPAP wear time in proportion to the time spent in bed.

The proposed solution:

• The faculty inventor, Esra Tasali, developed a new CPAP adherence tracking method that measures CPAP wear in relation to time spent in bed via a smartphone app interface. The CPAP tracking in the smartphone app provides users with meaningful feedback that aims to encourage and improve their CPAP adherence. The real-time app data can be used as a self-management tool for patients and as a monitoring tool for healthcare providers.

FIGURE

ADVANTAGES

ADVANTAGES

• Support both CPAP adherence and weight loss
• Real-time data and monitoring
• Integration of lifestyle behavior tracking (diet, physical activity, body weight, etc.)
• User-centered design

APPLICATIONS

• Obstructive sleep apnea

PUBLICATIONS

• Pfammatter AF, Hughes BO, Tucker B, Whitmore H, Spring B, Tasali E. The Development of a Novel mHealth Tool for Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Tracking Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Adherence as a Percentage of Time in Bed. J Med Internet Res. 2022 Dec 5;24(12):e39489

March 15, 2024

Proof of concept

Patent Pending

Licensing,Co-development

Esra Tasali