It is estimated that over 50% of stroke survivors have sleep apnea. However, they have limited access to sleep studies due to their multiple health complications, and current diagnostic techniques such as polysomnography are uncomfortable, complex and expensive.

A study led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), in collaboration with the Guttmann Institute, has now presented the first application of a smartphone-based system for the early detection and monitoring of sleep apnea in stroke patients.

Led by Raimon Jané, a professor at UPC and principal investigator at IBEC and CIBER-BBN, as well as leader of IBEC’s Biomedical Signal Processing and Interpretation (BIOSPIN) group, the work has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering journal.