Patent Publication Number: US-2017347950-A1

Title: System and method for breath monitoring mattress

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/345,762, filed Jun. 3, 2016, and entitled “Breath Rite Mattress,” which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     Sleeping disorder or any disorder that may cause a person to stop breathing during sleep affects well-being of millions of people. For a non-limiting example, sleep apnea is a common type of sleep disorder in which a person has one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while sleeping, wherein the breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. More seriously, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death among infants under one year old. Although the exact cause of SIDS remains unclear, it may be reflected in an abnormal breathing pattern of an infant. 
     Wearable motion and/or breathing sensors have become available lately, which when attached to a person&#39;s body, clothes, or diaper (in the case of an infant), can monitor the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities during sleep and provide information, indication, or alarm when an abnormal pattern in the person&#39;s body movement or breathing pattern is detected. Such wearable breathing sensors, however, are often not reliable due to random movements of the person during sleep, which may cause the sensors to get loose relative to the person&#39;s body or even trigger false alarm at times. In addition, it is often unrealistic to expect a person to consistently wear the sensors attached so close to his/her body, which can be intrusive especially for an infant. A better solution is desired, which would help to detect abnormal sleeping patterns of people especially infants without them being consciously aware of the presence of the sensors used for monitoring their body movements and/or breathing activities. 
     The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Aspects of the present disclosure are best understood from the following detailed description when read with the accompanying figures. It is noted that, in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, various features are not drawn to scale. In fact, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion. 
         FIG. 1  depicts an example of a system diagram to support a breath monitoring mattress for sleeping disorder detection in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 2  depicts examples of various possible locations of breathing sensors in the mattress in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 3  depicts examples of various resting state of a person on the mattress in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 4  depicts an example of a flowchart of a process to support a breath monitoring mattress for sleeping disorder detection in accordance with some embodiments. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS 
     The following disclosure provides many different embodiments, or examples, for implementing different features of the subject matter. Specific examples of components and arrangements are described below to simplify the present disclosure. These are, of course, merely examples and are not intended to be limiting. In addition, the present disclosure may repeat reference numerals and/or letters in the various examples. This repetition is for the purpose of simplicity and clarity and does not in itself dictate a relationship between the various embodiments and/or configurations discussed. 
     A new approach is proposed that contemplates system and method to support breath monitoring of a person via a plurality of breathing sensors embedded in a mattress the person is resting on. Once activated, each of the breathing sensors is configured to detect breathing activities and/or body movements caused by the breathing activities of the person lying on the mattress and report the breathing activities detected as electronic signals to a breathing monitor. Upon accepting the signals from the breathing sensors embedded in the mattress, the breathing monitor is configured to identify a breathing pattern based on the breathing activities of the person and detect any abnormal change in the breathing pattern of the person. If such abnormal change in the breathing pattern is detected, the breathing monitor is configured to generate and provide an alert to a monitoring party/caregiver of the person and/or produce an alarm to wake up the person in sleep. 
     By embedding the breathing sensors appropriately in the mattress the person sleeps on, instead of attaching the sensors to the person&#39;s body or clothes, the proposed approach enables more reliable collection of signals/data about the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities that does not depend on how the person may position/attach the sensors and/or how the sensors may move with respect to the person&#39;s body when he/she moves during sleep. Such reliable detection of the person&#39;s breathing activities reduces chances of missed detection and/or any false alarms of breathing abnormality of the person. As a result, the party monitoring the person&#39;s breathing activities (e.g., parent of an infant or caregiver of the person) may get notified promptly and the person who is experiencing a sleep disorder may be woken up by an alarm promptly as soon as a breathing abnormality of the person is detected. 
       FIG. 1  depicts an example of a system diagram to support a breath monitoring mattress for sleeping disorder detection. Although the diagrams depict components as functionally separate, such depiction is merely for illustrative purposes. It will be apparent that the components portrayed in this figure can be arbitrarily combined or divided into separate software, firmware and/or hardware components. Furthermore, it will also be apparent that such components, regardless of how they are combined or divided, can execute on the same host or multiple hosts, and wherein the multiple hosts can be connected by one or more networks. 
     In the example of  FIG. 1 , the system  100  includes at least one or more breathing sensors  104  embedded in a mattress  102 , and a breathing monitor  106  connected to the breathing sensors  104 . Here, the mattress  102  can be of various types and/or sizes. For non-limiting examples, the mattress  102  can be but is not limited to, a crib-sized mattress for infant or a toddler-sized mattress for a toddler, wherein the system  100  is configured to prevent the infant/toddler sleeping on the mattress  102  from suffering SIDS and/or infant sleep apnea. In some embodiments, the mattress  102  can be in size of one of Twin, Full, Double, Queen, King, and California King, wherein the system  100  is configured to prevent an adult sleeping on the mattress  102  from sleep apnea or any other type of sleep disorder. 
     In the example of  FIG. 1 , the breathing sensors  104  are electronic sensing devices embedded in the mattress  102  and configured to detect the body movements and/or breathing activities of a person occupying and sleeping on the mattress  102 . In some embodiments, as depicted by the example of  FIG. 2 , the breathing sensors  104  are positioned within or underneath a top layer  202  of the mattress  102  in proximity to the person who occupies the mattress  102  for accurate detection of his/her body movements and/or breathing activities. In some embodiments, the breathing sensors  104  are configured to detect any change or distortion in the shape or contour of the top layer of the mattress  102  caused by the body movements and/or breathing activities of the person and transmit a signal to the breathing monitor  106  when such change is detected. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing sensors  104  are coupled/attached to one or more coil springs  204  inside the mattress  102  as depicted by the example of  FIG. 2 . When the coil springs are suppressed as a result of the body movements and/or breathing activities of the person, the breathing sensors  104  are configured to detect such suppression and transmit a signal to the breathing monitor  106  accordingly. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing sensors  104  are configured to provide electronic data/signals of the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities to the breathing monitor  106  via a wired connection between the breathing sensors  104  and the breathing monitor  106 . In some embodiments, the breathing sensors  104  and the breathing monitor  106  are configured to communicate with each other via their respective communication interfaces (not shown) over a communication network following certain communication protocol, such as TCP/IP protocol. Here, the communication network can be but are not limited to, Internet, intranet, wide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN), wireless network, Bluetooth, WiFi, and mobile communication network. The physical connections of the network and the communication protocols are well known to those of skill in the art. 
     In the example of  FIG. 1 , the breathing monitor  106  is configured to accept and analyze signal received from the breathing sensors  104  about the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities. Here, the breathing monitor  106  is an electronic device external to the mattress  102 . In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is a dedicated electronic hardware device that includes at least a microprocessor, a storage unit such as a non-volatile memory (also referred to as secondary memory) of the device for storing data and software instructions to be loaded into memory (also referred to as primary memory) and executed by the microprocessor for practicing one or more processes. In some embodiments, the microprocessor may be a digital signal processor formed of application specific integrated circuits for performing the processes. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  may further include a display screen and one or more input devices, control buttons, and LCD indicators (not shown). Here, the breathing monitor  106  can be either plugged into a power outlet via a cord or battery-powered. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is a general purpose computing/communication device having a breath monitoring software (e.g., a breath monitoring app) running on it. Here, The computing/communication device can be but is not limited to a mobile phone (e.g., a smartphone) or a tablet such as an iPhone, an iPad, a Google&#39;s Android device, a laptop PC, or any mobile computing and/or communication device capable of running a software component or app for breath monitoring. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to identify a breathing pattern of a person lying on the mattress  102  based on analysis of data of the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities collected by the breathing sensors  104 . Here, the identified breathing pattern may include one or more of frequency of the person&#39;s breath, duration and depth of each breath. In some embodiments, the breathing pattern of the person is used by the breathing monitor  106  to determine the current resting state of the person on the mattress  102 , where the resting state can be but is not limited to one of awake state, light sleeping state, and deep sleeping state as shown by the example of  FIG. 3 . For a non-limiting example, if the person is having slower, deeper, regular but less frequent breaths than when awake, he/she is most likely in a deep sleeping state, where the sleeping disorders are most likely to happen. Note that the transition among different resting states of the person, such as from awake to sleeping or from sleeping to awake usually happens gradually over time, not abruptly. In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to record/store the breathing pattern of the person in a storage unit (not shown) of the breathing sensors  104  for later detection of any sudden change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to detect any sudden or abnormal change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern while the person is in a sleeping state, wherein such sudden or abnormal change may be an indication that the person is experiencing a sleeping disorder and entering an abnormal sleeping state. Here, the sudden or abnormal change may happen in one or more of the frequency, duration and depth of the person&#39;s breath. For a non-limiting example, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to detect that the person has stopped breathing if there is a sudden drop in the frequency of his/her breathe or the duration of his/her breathe becomes unusually long relative to the duration his/her normal breathe. 
     Once a sudden or abnormal change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern is detected, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to alert the person or his/her caregiver (e.g., parents of an infant or toddler or nurse of a patient) to correct the situation via various means. For non-limiting examples, in some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to automatically trigger an alarm sound through a speaker  108  associated with or integrated within either the breathing monitor  106  or the mattress  102  to wake the person up. In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to automatically trigger a vibrator  110  embedded in the top layer of the mattress  102  to wake the person up. In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to turn on one or more LCD/LED indicators  114  on the breathing monitor  106  to alert a caregiver that a sudden or abnormal change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern has happened. In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  includes one or more control buttons  116  configured to enable a caregiver of the person to manually control operations and functionalities of the breathing monitor  106  such as turning on/off the alarm, light indicator, and/or the vibrator. 
     In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to provide information about the person&#39;s breathing pattern as well as the sudden or abnormal change detected in the breathing pattern to monitoring device  112  associated with a caregiver (e.g., parents of a baby or nurse of a patient at another room) and configured to receive such information when the caregiver is at a separate location from the breathing monitor  106  and/or the person sleeping on the mattress  102 . Here, the monitoring device  112  can either be a dedicated monitoring device (e.g., baby monitor) or a general purpose computing device such as a mobile phone or a tablet or any computing device capable of running a software component or app for breath monitoring. In some embodiments, the breathing monitor  106  is configured to communicate with the monitoring device  112  wirelessly over a communication network such as Bluetooth and/or WiFi network. 
     In some embodiments, the monitoring device  112  is configured to present the information about the person&#39;s breathing pattern to the caregiver via a display. In some embodiments, the monitoring device  112  is configured to notify or alert the caregiver by sound or vibration when the sudden or abnormal change in the breathing pattern of the person is detected, e.g., when the person has stopped breathing. In some embodiments, the monitoring device  112  is configured to be pre-programmed to make emergency phone calls to 911 when the sudden or abnormal change in the breathing pattern of the person is detected if the caregiver is not present. In some embodiments, the monitoring device  112  is configured to provide the caregiver with instructions on how to deal with the person experiencing the sudden or abnormal change in his/her breathing pattern, e.g., how to perform CPR on the person experiencing a sleeping disorder. In some embodiments, the monitoring device  112  is configured to accept an instruction from the caregiver via an input interface (e.g., a keyboard or touchscreen) and take actions accordingly, e.g., playing an alarm sound via speaker  108  or creating a vibration at the mattress  102  via vibrator  110 . 
       FIG. 4  depicts an example of a flowchart of a process to support a breath monitoring mattress for sleeping disorder detection. Although this figure depicts functional steps in a particular order for purposes of illustration, the process is not limited to any particular order or arrangement of steps. One skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the various steps portrayed in this figure could be omitted, rearranged, combined and/or adapted in various ways. 
     In the example of  FIG. 4 , the flowchart  400  starts at block  402 , where body movements and/or breathing activities of a person occupying or sleeping on the mattress are detected via one or more breathing sensors embedded in the mattress. The flowchart  400  continues to block  404 , where electronic data/signals of the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities detected by the breathing sensors is provided to a breathing monitor for analysis. The flowchart  400  continues to block  406 , where a breathing pattern of the person on the mattress is identified based on analysis of the data of the person&#39;s body movements and/or breathing activities received from the breathing sensors. The flowchart  400  continues to block  408 , where a sudden or abnormal change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern is detected when such change happens, wherein such sudden or abnormal change is an indication that the person is experiencing a sleeping disorder. The flowchart  400  ends at block  410 , where the person and/or his/her caregiver is alerted to take action once the sudden or abnormal change in the person&#39;s breathing pattern is detected. 
     One embodiment may be implemented using a conventional general purpose or a specialized digital computer or microprocessor(s) programmed according to the teachings of the present disclosure, as will be apparent to those skilled in the computer art. Appropriate software coding can readily be prepared by skilled programmers based on the teachings of the present disclosure, as will be apparent to those skilled in the software art. The invention may also be implemented by the preparation of integrated circuits or by interconnecting an appropriate network of conventional component circuits, as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. 
     The foregoing description of various embodiments of the claimed subject matter has been provided for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the claimed subject matter to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to the practitioner skilled in the art. Particularly, while the concept “component” is used in the embodiments of the systems and methods described above, it will be evident that such concept can be interchangeably used with equivalent concepts such as, class, method, type, interface, module, object model, and other suitable concepts. Embodiments were chosen and described in order to best describe the principles of the invention and its practical application, thereby enabling others skilled in the relevant art to understand the claimed subject matter, the various embodiments and with various modifications that are suited to the particular use contemplated.