SoundTrak Sleep Study Field Trial Begins

Obstructive sleep-disordered breathing (OSDB) is common in both children and adults and is recognized as having substantial health-related consequences at all ages. Laboratory polysomnography (PSG) is the gold standard for diagnosing OSDB, but the procedure is not without problems. Polysomnographic studies are complex, invasive, expensive, not universally available, and require an overnight stay in a sleep laboratory.  Additionally, conventional signals used to detect airflow, especially oral airflow, are qualitative, making it difficult to precisely quantify OSDB.

Barron Associates and their partners are developing the SoundTrak system, a low-cost sleep monitor for use in individuals’ home environments to noninvasively, ergonomically, and automatically acquire and analyze high-frequency inspiratory sound data pertaining to OSDB. The SoundTrak system will collect low- and high-frequency sound data via a microphone and a small, highly-portable computing base station.

The SoundTrak system is currently being evaluated at a sleep disorder center on both children and adults. SoundTrak system findings will be compared statistically to gold-standard laboratory PSG.