Help for Those With Epilepsy, Sleep Apnea

Hospitalized epilepsy patients are often monitored via electrodes attached to the face and scalp, wired to a box that receives brain and facial activity data and tracks their condition around the clock. Those with sleep apnea, meanwhile, are usually monitored overnight at a clinic, with electrodes connected to a receiving device that measures eye and jaw muscle movement, as well as brain activity, and wires the data to a computer for analysis.

IMEC-Nederland (IMEC-NL) is working to make such procedures wireless, affording patients mobility and possibly the ability to monitor their condition from home. The nonprofit research institute has built prototype human body-monitoring systems using active RFID tags integrated with sensors. These sugar cube-sized devices record a wearer's vital signs and transmit that data to a central system.

In the event of a shift in brain activity, the system can send an alert to an interrogator up to 10 meters away. Apnea patients previously monitored at a clinic would be able to check sleep patterns from home, attaching electrodes to the chin and around the eyes to record muscle and brain activity during the night. The electrodes' data and ID would be transmitted to an interrogator, then to a PC, which would store the information and send it to a physician over the Internet.

The prototypes have been tested at a Dutch university, as well as on IMEC employees and patients at a hospital in Belgium. IMEC is now seeking partners to commercialize the systems. Read the full story here.

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