Ambulatory Monitor for Seizure and Sleep Disorders

Our object is to develop a fully ambulatory monitoring system for seizure and sleep evaluation,that includes automatic detection of EEG abnormalities and sleep features and has sufficient data storagecapacity for a routine sleep study. The system will build upon the existing 18 channel Digitrace homemonitoring system, which includes a battery powered event recorder and companion portable computerfor spike and seizure detection. Phase 1 investigations will 1) identify an appropriate new microproces-sor, by searching for the optimal trade-off between power consumption and onboard memory advances,2) evaluate new data storage approaches, in particular new flash memory chips, 3) streamline existingEEG abnormality algorithms, and 4) integrate into the system a hardware board with oximetry measuringcapability. The specific goal for the sleep monitoring device is the capability of 8 to 10 hours ofcontinuous data recording, including oximetry, EEG, EKG, EOG, EMG, etc. The specific goal for the newepilepsy monitoring device is to eliminate the necessity of the portable computer, which currentlyrequires 110 volt power, and to incorporate within the battery-powered recorder spike and seizuredetection capability and a capacity for recording up to 4 hours of epochs. The ultimate goal of the phase1 investigation is to develop 2 fully-functioning prototype systems.