Using activity-based rest disturbance as a metric of sleep apnea
First Claim
1. A method implemented by an implantable cardiac device, comprising:
- detecting a heightened level of patient activity while the patient is at rest;
timing a duration of the heightened level of patient activity;
in an event that the duration is less than a predefined time limit, identifying the heightened level of patient activity as sleep disturbance;
administering multiple different pacing therapies to treat sleep apnea; and
evaluating the pacing therapies based on how the pacing therapies affect the sleep disturbances.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An implantable cardiac device is programmed to monitor short term activity changes that occur while a patient is at rest to produce a sleep disturbance metric that is useful in analyzing and/or treating sleep apnea. After the implantable cardiac device confirms that a patient is at rest, the device monitors an instantaneous signal from an activity sensor to detect variances from normal rest mode activity. When the variances exceed a preset threshold for a short time period (e.g., less than 30–40 sec.), the patient is presumed to be experiencing a form of sleep disturbance as opposed to conscious or wakeful activity. These short term events are recorded as sleep disturbance events. The sleep disturbance metric are reported to a physician as a diagnostic to help ascertain the severity of sleep apnea or to evaluate the effectiveness of pacing therapies being applied to treat sleep apnea.
179 Citations
31 Claims
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1. A method implemented by an implantable cardiac device, comprising:
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detecting a heightened level of patient activity while the patient is at rest; timing a duration of the heightened level of patient activity; in an event that the duration is less than a predefined time limit, identifying the heightened level of patient activity as sleep disturbance; administering multiple different pacing therapies to treat sleep apnea; and evaluating the pacing therapies based on how the pacing therapies affect the sleep disturbances. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method comprising:
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determining that a patient is at rest; while the patient is at rest, monitoring an instantaneous activity signal indicative of a patient'"'"'s activity; detecting when the instantaneous activity signal exceeds a threshold; timing a duration that the instantaneous activity signal exceeds the threshold; in an event that the instantaneous activity signal exceeds the threshold for less than a preset time, recording the patient'"'"'s activity as a sleep disturbance; administering multiple different pacing therapies to treat sleep apnea; collecting sleep disturbance metrics for individual pacing therapies; and evaluating the pacing therapies based on how the pacing therapies affect the sleep disturbance metrics. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. An implantable cardiac device comprising:
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sensing circuitry to sense a patient'"'"'s activity; a sleep disturbance detector to detect when a patient, who is at rest, is experiencing sleep disturbance based on the patient'"'"'s activity; a therapy module to prescribe a pacing therapy for treating sleep apnea from among multiple different pacing therapies; a pulse generator to generate pacing pulses according to the prescribed pacing therapy for an evaluation timeframe; and the sleep disturbance detector counting a number of sleep disturbances experienced during the evaluation timeframe of the prescribed pacing therapy. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16)
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17. An implantable cardiac device comprising:
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an activity sensor to sense a patient'"'"'s activity; a processor to confirm that the patient is at rest based on the patient'"'"'s activity and while the patient is resting, to detect one or more sleep disturbances that occur when the patient'"'"'s activity rises above a threshold for less than a preset time limit; a memory to store disturbance data pertaining to the sleep disturbances detected by the processor; a therapy module to prescribe a pacing therapy for treating sleep apnea from among multiple different pacing therapies; a pulse generator to generate pacing pulses according to the prescribed pacing therapy for an evaluation timeframe; and the sleep apnea detector measuring durations of episodes experienced during the evaluation timeframe of the prescribed pacing therapy. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. An implantable cardiac device comprising:
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activity detection means for detecting when a patient'"'"'s activity rises above a preset threshold; timing means for timing a duration that the patient'"'"'s activity is above the preset threshold; identification means for identifying the patient'"'"'s activity as sleep disturbance in an event that the patient'"'"'s activity is above the preset threshold for less than a time limit; and apnea therapy means for administering a pacing therapy to counteract the sleep apnea from among a multiple of different pacing therapies. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. An implantable and programmable cardiac device having a memory and a processor, the cardiac device being programmed to perform tasks comprising:
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detecting a heightened level of patient activity while the patient is at rest; timing a duration of the heightened level of patient activity; in an event that the duration is less than a predefined time limit, identifying the heightened level of patient activity as sleep disturbance; and administering different pacing therapies for treating sleep apnea and collecting sleep disturbance metrics during individual therapies to evaluate effectiveness of the different pacing therapies. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31)
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Specification