System and method for visualizing sleep-related information

#The present invention generally relates to ways of characterizing health related disorders. More particularly, the invention provides a system and method for visualizing information related to the sleep of an organism such as a mammal or human being. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability such as applicability in situations where body position is a consideration.

#Several disorders of sleep are known, including but not limited to snoring, insomnia, restless legs syndrome, upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS), and sleep apnea and its subtypes: obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and central sleep apnea (CSA). To characterize disorders afflicting patients during sleep, diagnostic tests known as “sleep studies” may be performed. During a typical sleep study, physiological data are collected from the patient by various physiological sensors during a night's sleep. A type of sleep study called polysomnography (PSG) normally collects physiological data from a plurality of data channels over several hours. Belcher (Sleeping: On the Job! 2002, page 138) describes 16 to 18 different data channels for a typical PSG study. The resulting data set may be large. Lipman (Snoring from A to Zzzz. 1998, page 115) reports that a paper record of a PSG study may require one-half mile of paper. Computers and digital data storage have, in many cases, reduced the need for paper in sleep studies, but the quantity of information resulting from a sleep study may still tax the patience of a busy health care professional who wants to rapidly assess the clinical implications of the data.

#Efficiently presenting a large data set to a busy health professional can be challenging. Much of the data collected during a sleep study are quantitative. Presenting quantitative data graphically has often proven advantageous. Tufte (The Display of Quantitative Information. 1983, page 9) notes: “Modern data graphics can do much more than simply substitute for small statistical tables. At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. Often the most effective way to describe, explore, and summarize a set of numbers —even a very large set—is to look at pictures of those numbers. Furthermore, of all methods for analyzing and communicating statistical information, well-designed data graphics are usually the simplest and at the same time the most powerful.”

#FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a visualization of polysomnographic information.

#FIG. 2 illustrates a visualization of body position information.

#FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of the operation of one embodiment of a system for communicating physiological information.

#(Color versions of FIGS. 1A, 1B, 4A, and 5 are being supplied on CD-ROM.)

#FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram of steps in communicating physiological information about a human or otherwise mammalian patient. In one method, in data collection step 310 a device may acquire physiological data from a patient who is sleeping (or attempting to sleep). The device may be a polysomnographic device or a reduced sensor device, e.g. as taught in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/094,911. In step 320 the data collected in step 310 may be converted to digital format, e.g. with an analog-to-digital converter.

#In one method, optional step 330 may result in one or more processing transformations being applied to the digitized data provided from step 320. For example, audio data may be filtered, unusable portions of data may be identified and tagged, artifacts in the data may be removed, diagnoses may be made, and algorithmic transformations may be applied to the data. An example of an algorithmic transformation is computation of an envelope of an audio signal. Merely by way of example, processing step 330 may occur in a digital computer.