Respiratory disease monitoring system

A method for monitoring a respiratory disease of a patient, comprising the steps of:

• sensing a weight of a patient at a plurality of positions under a sleeping area of said patient to generate a plurality of weight signals from said plurality of positions;
• detecting, as a respiratory body movement signal, a signal within a frequency band corresponding to a patient's respiratory rate from the plurality of weight signals;
• and
• calculating a fall of blood oxygen saturation during an obstructive apnea based on a wave of a maximum amplitude out of a plurality if waves included in an envelope waveform of a respiratory body movement signal.

A respiratory disease monitoring system comprising:

• a detection means which detects the body movement of a patient caused by respiration during sleep, wherein the detection means extracts a signal within a frequency band corresponding to a patient's respiratory rate as a respiratory body movement signal;
• a determination means which determines a fall of blood oxygen saturation during an obstructive apnea based on a variation pattern of the body movement detected by the detection means, wherein the determination means further comprises,
• an envelope waveform producing means which produces an envelope waveform which connects peaks of the respiratory body movement signal;
• and
• a waveform recognition means which recognizes a characteristic waveform that correlates with the fall in blood oxygen saturation in the envelope waveform,
• wherein a determination means counts the frequency of the fall of blood oxygen saturation based on a frequency of the appearance of the characteristic waveform;
• and
• a display means which displays the fall of blood oxygen saturation.

A respiratory disease monitoring system comprising:

• a detection means which detects body movement of a patient caused by respiration during sleep, wherein the detection means extracts a signal within a frequency band corresponding to a patient's respiratory rate as a respiratory body movement signal;
• a determination means which determines a fall of blood oxygen saturation during an obstructive apnea based on a variation pattern of the body movement detected by the detection means, wherein the determination means comprises a waveform recognition means which recognizes a characteristic waveform, which correlates with the fall in blood oxygen saturation, in peaks of a plurality of waves included in the respiratory body movement signal and wherein the determination means counts a frequency of the fall of blood oxygen saturation based on a frequency of the appearance of the characteristic waveform;
• and
• a display means which displays the fall of blood oxygen saturation.

A respiratory disease monitoring system comprising:

• a detection device having a plurality of sensors disposed under a sleeping area of a patient, each of said sensors outputting signals representative of a force exerted on each said sensor by said patient;
• and
• a processing unit which processes each said signal to calculate a fall of blood oxygen saturation during an obstructive apnea, said processing unit calculating said fall in blood oxygen saturation based on a variation pattern of said signals from said plurality of sensors, wherein,
• said processing unit selecting a reference sensor that produces a reference signal having a largest amplitude in a respiration frequency band;
• a first portion of said sensors producing signals within a phase range of said reference signal, a second portion of said sensors producing a weight signal outside of said range, said range being substantially in phase with said signal generated by said reference sensor;
• and
• said processing unit producing a summed respiratory body movement signal based on the reference signal, signals from said first portion of sensors and signals from said second portion of said sensors.