Sleep apnea testing generally requires an overnight stay in a sleep clinic, tens of wires attached to your head and body (glued), and tubes inserted into your nose and in front of your mouth. This setup makes for a difficult sleep on top of existing abnormalities, and, because the clinics need to be staffed all night, is relatively expensive.
Watermark Medical, out of Boca Raton, Florida, provides at home diagnostic solutions for sleep disorders such as apnea by giving patients a headset, of sorts, to wear at home during sleep. Their device, the ARES Unicoder, collects O2 saturation, nasal airflow, pulse rate, snoring, head movement, and REM/NREM via an EEG. This data is combined with clinical indicators to provide an apnea index and respiratory disturbance index that allows physicians to diagnose sleep apnea.
The product, named by the Cleveland Clinic as a top 10 medical innovation of 2010, is being marketed as a reimbursable, less expensive alternative to in-lab sleep apnea testing.
Link: Watermark Medical…
