Date: Oct 26, 2004 Source: NIH Success Stories (
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Technology Developed:
The patented Apnea Risk Evaluation System (ARES) is an easy-to-apply, in-home system for diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The ARES combines a miniaturized, battery-powered device to measure blood oxygen levels, pulse rate, snoring sounds, nasal pressure and head position/movement with a questionnaire to assess known risk factors.
Uses of Technology/Products/Service:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is one of the world's most prevalent, underdiagnosed disorders, responsible for more mortality and morbidity than any other sleep disorder and recognized as a major public health concern. OSA is characterized by recurrent failures to breathe during sleep resulting from obstruction of the upper airway. OSA can cause daytime drowsiness and memory impairment, and has been associated with hypertension, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke. Untreated OSA patients are 3-7 times more likely to be involved in industrial and motor vehicle accidents due to slower reaction times and impaired vigilance. Despite this growing evidence that OSA threatens public health, safety and productivity, current estimates reveal that 93% of women and 82% of men with moderate to severe OSA remain undiagnosed. One reason for this is that the current gold standard for diagnosing OSA, the laboratory sleep study, is cumbersome, uncomfortable, time-consuming and expensive. ARES offers a convenient, affordable alternative to lab studies. A large, multi-site clinical trial with 280 patients compared ARES to lab sleep studies. In-home studies were also conducted either prior to, or following in-lab. In-lab comparisons resulted in a 0.96 correlation between the ARES results and those obtained in the laboratory sleep study (0.96 correlation), proving ARES to be a viable alternative to lab testing.
Benefit to Company:
With funding from the SBIR program, Advanced Brain Monitoring, Inc. is addressing sleep apnea, memory dysfunction, and alertness monitoring with instrument systems that combine laboratory level accuracy with the portability, ease of use and low cost of consumer electronics. SBIR funds have allowed ABM to complete comprehensive multi-site clinical trials to establish the validity of the technologies. These studies would be difficult to fund with private sector financing.
How Product Was Commercialized:
ABM now holds six patents on these technologies and the ARES was recently cleared by the FDA. ABM systems will be sold to medical, industrial, research and consumer markets. The systems enable widespread use by physicians, dentists, industrial/transportation companies, and consumers possible.
