ITEE Innovation Expo 2008 : Project Details

Portable electronics for physiological data acqiuisiton

Some physiological signals are useful to help in early detection of harmful disease such as Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA). People who suffer from OSA slow or temporarily stop breathing for a period of time while sleeping. This is because the complete relaxation of the throat muscles causes blockage of the upper airway at the back of the tongue. Once this happen, the brain will relieve signal so that the person will wake up and the airway can be opened and hence, he can breath normally again. This phenomenon can happen several times at night and cause the sufferers awaken unrefreshed, feeling tired and need of refreshing sleep. The medical are looking forward for the most convenience portable electronic devices to help them acquire any physiological signals to help in early detection of such disease. Signals include snoring, breathing temperature, and electrocardiogram (ECG) are some useful signals to detect the OSA. Many researches are being done to improve the current technologies which usually required the sufferer to stay overnight in the laboratory to capture any symptoms for the disease. Recent researches are focus more on the portable device to detect those symptoms. This project is looking into the application of the integration between active and passive components to come out with a portable device which can acquire three physiological signals including snore, temperature and the electrocardiogram signals. The three signals are added together in a way so that it can be separated again once the analysis is taking place; which is not the scope of this project. Some testing was done and any documentation is presented.