Collecting activity and sleep quality information via a medical device

• US 20050234518A1
• Filed: 03/16/2005
• Published: 10/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/16/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Medtronic Incorporated (Medtronic Plc)
• Original Assignee: Medtronic Incorporated (Medtronic Plc)
• Inventors: Heruth, Kenneth T., Miesel, Keith A.
• Application Number:
  US11/081,857
• Publication Number:
  US 20050234518A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 607/6
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1116 Determining posture transitions
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1118 Determining activity level
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4519 Muscles A61B5/389, A61B5/224 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4815 Sleep quality
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6826 Finger
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/686 Permanently implanted devices, e.g. pacemakers, other stimulators, biochips A61B5/6861 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/36135 using physiological parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/36542 controlled by body motion, e.g. acceleration

Abstract

A device, such as an implantable medical device (IMD), programming device, or other computing device determines when a patient is attempting to sleep. When the device determines that the patient is attempting to sleep, the device determines values for one or more metrics that indicate the quality of a patient'"'"'s sleep based on at least one physiological parameter of the patient. When the device determines that the patient is not attempting to sleep, the device periodically determines activity levels of the patient. Activity metric values may be determined based on the determined activity levels. A clinician may use sleep quality information and patient activity information presented by a programming device to, for example, evaluate the effectiveness of therapy delivered to the patient by a medical device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

monitoring a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient, wherein the plurality of physiological parameters includes at least one parameter indicative of patient physical activity;

determining when the patient is attempting to sleep;

determining values of at least one metric that is indicative of sleep quality based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is attempting to sleep; and

periodically determining an activity level of the patient based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is not attempting to sleep,

wherein monitoring a plurality of physiological parameters comprises monitoring at least one of electrocardiogram morphology, subcutaneous temperature, muscular tone, brain electrical activity, or eye motion.

2. A medical system comprising:

a device that monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient, wherein the plurality of physiological parameters includes at least one physiological parameter indicative of patient physical activity; and

a processor that determines when the patient is attempting to sleep, determines values of at least one metric that is indicative of sleep quality based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is attempting to sleep, and periodically determines an activity level of the patient based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is not attempting to sleep.

3. The medical system of claim 2, wherein the device monitors at least one of electrocardiogram morphology, subcutaneous temperature, muscular tone, brain electrical activity, or eye motion.

4. The medical system of claim 2,

wherein the device that monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient comprises a first device,

the system further comprising a second device that delivers a therapy to the patient according to a plurality of therapy parameter sets,

wherein the processor associates each of the determined sleep quality metric value and each of the determined activity levels with a current therapy parameter set,

wherein, for each of the plurality of therapy parameter sets, the processor determines a representative value of each of the at least one sleep quality metric based on the sleep quality metric values associated with the therapy parameter set, and

wherein, for each of the plurality of therapy parameter sets, the processor determines at least one activity metric value based on the activity levels associated with the therapy parameter set.

5. The medical system of claim 4, further comprising a computing device including a display that presents a list of the therapy parameter sets, associated representative sleep quality metric values, and associated activity metric values.

6. The medical system of claim 5, wherein the computing device receives user selection of one of the sleep quality metrics and activity metric, and orders the list of therapy parameter sets according to values of the user selected one of the sleep quality metrics and activity metrics.

7. The medical system of claim 4, wherein the first and second device comprise a single device.

8. The medical system of claim 2, wherein the processor comprises a processor of the device that monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of the patient.

9. The medical system of claim 2, further comprising a computing device, wherein the processor comprises a processor of the computing device.

10. The medical system of claim 2, wherein the device that monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of the patient comprises an implantable medical device.

11. The medical system of claim 10, wherein the implantable medical device comprises at least one of an implantable neurostimulator and an implantable drug pump.

12. The medical system of claim 2, wherein the device that monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of the patient comprises at least one of a trial neurostimulator and a trial pump.

13. A medical system comprising:

means for monitoring a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient, wherein the plurality of physiological parameters includes at least one parameter indicative of patient physical activity;

means for determining when the patient is attempting to sleep;

means for determining values of at least one metric that is indicative of sleep quality based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is attempting to sleep; and

means for periodically determining an activity level of the patient based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is not attempting to sleep

wherein means for monitoring a plurality of physiological parameters comprises means for monitoring at least one of electrocardiogram morphology, subcutaneous temperature, muscular tone, brain electrical activity, or eye motion.

14. A medical system comprising:

an implantable medical device that delivers a therapy to a patient based on a plurality of therapy parameter sets, monitors a plurality of physiological parameters of the patient including at least one parameter indicative of patient physical activity, determines when the patient is attempting to sleep, determines values of at least one metric that is indicative of sleep quality based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is attempting to sleep, periodically determines an activity level of the patient based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is not attempting to sleep, associates each determined sleep quality metric value and each determined activity level with a current therapy parameter set, determines a representative value of each of the at least one sleep quality metrics for each of the plurality of therapy parameter sets based on the sleep quality metric values associated with the therapy parameter set, and determines at least one activity metric value for each of the plurality of therapy parameter sets based on the activity levels associated with the therapy parameter set; and

an external programming device including a display that receives information identifying the plurality of therapy parameter sets and the sleep quality metric values and activity metric values associated with the therapy parameter sets from the implantable medical device, and presents a list of the therapy parameter sets and the associated sleep quality metric values and activity metric values to a user,

wherein the implantable medical device monitors at least one of electrocardiogram morphology, subcutaneous temperature, muscular tone, brain electrical activity, or eye motion.

15. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that cause a programmable processor to:

monitor a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient, wherein the plurality of physiological parameters includes at least one parameter indicative of patient physical activity;

determine when the patient is attempting to sleep;

determine values of at least one metric that is indicative of sleep quality based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is attempting to sleep; and

periodically determine an activity level of the patient based on at least one of the physiological parameters and a determination that the patient is not attempting to sleep

wherein the instructions that cause a programmable processor to monitor a plurality of physiological parameters of a patient comprise instructions that cause the programmable processor to monitor at least one of electrocardiogram morphology, subcutaneous temperature, muscular tone, brain electrical activity, or eye motion.