Automated, Assistive, Non-Contact Sleep Quality Monitor for Individuals with Alzheimer Disease

Project Summary/Abstract Proposed is a sleep monitoring system specifically designed for care providers of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) to monitor sleep disturbances and trends. Significance: Studies indicate that approximately 1 in 3 patients with AD/ADRD suffer from sleep and other nighttime disturbances such as insomnia and disruption of sleep, wandering, day/night confusion, repeatedly leaving bed, nightmares, and hallucinations. Sleep disturbances often lead to reduced health and lower quality of life for persons with AD/ADRD and in Long Term Care (LTC) settings place burden on staff. Nearly half of all people in LTC settings have a diagnosis of AD/ADRD. Unfortunately, clinical providers and staff in LTCs are limited in their ability to identify and treat these conditions as current methods of sleep quality assessment are either inaccurate, time consuming, or inappropriate for use with those who have AD/ADRD. Hypothesis: We hypothesize that a system which allows for practical, long-term monitoring of sleep quality metrics for patients with AD/ADRD will lead to greater documentation of sleep problems, greater prescribing of appropriate nonpharmacological treatment, and improvements in sleep quality and daytime inactivity. Specific Aims: To transition the Phase I prototype to a production ready product and evaluate the efficacy of the system in Phase II IDL will 1) Create production-ready system with updated hardware, firmware, and mechanical design 2) Create cloud-enabled backend, implement web / mobile interfaces, and refine sleep metrics and 3) Evaluate system’s real-world feasibility, acceptability, and utility in a before-after clinical trial.