Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is typically treated with continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP), which normally involves a bedside pump pushing air into the lungs via a hose connected to a face mask. Sleeping like this can be terribly uncomfortable for many, and compliance rates with the therapy are very low. Now a team is raising money on Indiegogo to develop a device that’s essentially an entire miniaturized CPAP machine that’s small enough to stick in the nose.
We’re certainly very skeptical of anything this small that would have sufficient strength and battery power to provide CPAP therapy throughout the night. Yet, the designers of the Airing device believe the underlying technology already exists that will make this possible. They’re planning to rely on so-called micro-blowers that use little power to push air into the nostrils and it’s not clear what kind of batteries can hold enough charge for all-night operation. Nevertheless, there’s clearly a lot of hope out there for this to become a reality since the team already managed to raise over a half million dollars on Indiegogo.
Here’s a video created to help with crowdfunding the Airing:
Link @ Indiegogo: Airing: the first hoseless, maskless, micro-CPAP…