Sleep Quality Monitoring with the Smart Bed

Abstract

Long-term sleep monitoring of patients is interesting for the diagnosis of sleep disorders and for the continuous monitoring of the health state. However, traditional polysomnography is not suited for long-term monitoring due to various reasons and new intelligent solutions are required for the continuous and unobtrusive monitoring of sleep parameters. In this chapter we present the Mobility Monitor, a portable sleep monitoring system which has been developed specifically for elderly care facilities. The system informs the nursing staff about the patient’s movement patterns during the night. This information can be used for the assessment of the risk of pressure ulcer, to monitor bed exits or to observe the influence of medication on sleep behavior. With application examples of a nursing home and the results of a recent observational study, we will demonstrate the use of the mobility analysis and show how the additional insights can improve the care quality