Withings has added new capabilities to its sleep sensor mat, the Withings Sleep, that it says will track and provide detailed information about breathing disturbances experienced during the night. Available to all current Sleep owners after performing an app update, the new feature charts their breathing disturbances over time and provides educational content to help users recognize the signs of sleep apnea.

The new feature acts as a first step towards Withings’ strategy to introduce even more advanced sleep diagnostics including sleep apnea detection. Withings aims to add these capabilities by the end of 2019, subject to FDA and CE clearances.

According to the company, the new Withings Sleep breathing feature provides users with an early warning system to allow them to identify hard to diagnose potential issues and where appropriate, seek medical advice.

Breathing disturbances is a free upgrade for Withings Sleep and was developed and extensively tested by sleep physician Dr Pierre Escourrou within the Paris-Béclère hospital sleep lab using polysomnography (PSG) analysis.

Withings Sleep is a mat that fits under the mattress and after a onetime setup

Sleep apnea can cause a range of health risks and problems, from heart disease and type 2 diabetes to drowsy driving and metabolic disruptions affecting performance. Even children between 2 and 8 can develop sleep apnea, which can affect normal development, learning and behavior.

“Treatments often fail because there is a knowledge gap of the fundamental science behind the reasons for this health issue,” says Haibo Dong, PhD, a University of Virginia associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who specializes in fluid dynamics research, in a release.

Dong and PhD students Junshi Wang and Pan Han are gaining new understanding of the fundamental science behind sleep apnea by using CT scans and MRIs to image the mouth and nose and the full airway during snoring and apnea, and then computer-modeling the actions that cause vibrations of the uvula and obstructions. They are looking for the changes in the shape of the airway during sleep that cause perturbations in airflow. Those perturbations are the vibrations of snoring and the often-resulting breathing difficulties.

The three images here represent vortices, streamlines, and

The NCSDR has helped to answer the question: How does sleep impact health?

By Lisa Spear

Over the last few decades, we’ve seen a tremendous uptick in sleep research. Many of the clinical investigations that have advanced the medical world’s understanding of sleep have been supported by the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR), established to foster sleep and circadian research within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A part of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the center is just now celebrating its 25^th anniversary, but its accomplishments are wide reaching for such a young government agency. Since the center’s inception in 1993, the number of sleep and circadian grants funded across the NIH has nearly tripled, says Michael Twery, PhD, the NCSDR’s director.

“The progress has been nothing short of remarkable,” says Patrick M. Fuller, PhD, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

To honor the 25^th anniversary of the NCSDR, Fuller will take part in a discussion group during SLEEP 2019, an annual conference hosted in partnership with the Sleep

Neurobiological processes that occur during sleep have a profound impact on brain health, especially as we get older, writes neuropsychologist Margaret O’Connor, PhD, ABPP.

Numerous studies have shown that structural and physiological changes that occur in the brain during sleep affect capacity for new learning, as well as the strength of memories formed during the day. Sleep promotes the consolidation of experiences and ideas; it plays a pivotal role in memory, and has been shown to enhance attention, problem solving, and creativity.

When we get older, we tend to feel sleepy earlier in the evening. This may result in waking up early in the morning as our sleeping hours shift. Older people have less REM and less slow wave sleep. Less slow wave sleep may impede memory consolidation in older adults.In addition to changes in sleep cycles, older people are increasingly vulnerable to sleep disturbances that cause poor sleep and low brain oxygen such as sleep apnea, a medical condition characterized by loud snoring, breathing pauses during sleep, and daytime fatigue.

Get the full story at www.health.harvard.edu

Barry G Fields, MD, MSEd, spoke to Pulmonology Consultant about sleep telemedicine.

It is difficult to quantify how much telemedicine has improved access to diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders, but we do know that patient demand for these services far exceeds provider supply. This is especially the case for patients who are homebound, live in rural areas, or live in places with a low sleep provider to patient ratio (even in some urban areas). Research shows that the quality of sleep care provided through telemedicine can be noninferior to that provided through in-person visits.

Get the full story at www.consultant360.com

CBS2’s Dr Max Gomez reports that experts think most over-the-counter sleep aids are actually hurting, not helping teens.

Experts also warn of building a tolerance to these medications, and even potential liver damage from the overuse of acetaminophen, a common painkiller found in some sleep aid formulations.

“We would love for the children of teenage years to sleep anywhere between eight to 10 hours and most are not even coming close,” said Dr. Pakkay Ngai, a pediatric pulmonologist at Hackensack University Medical Center. “We’re looking for the quick fix. But it doesn’t get to the root of the problem.”

Get the full story at newyork.cbslocal.com

How smartphone apps are changing behavioral sleep medicine.

By Lisa Spear

If your patients have trouble falling sleep and staying asleep, there are more than a hundred apps out there that promise to guide them through actionable changes and track progress over time. Only a handful are developed with the advice of credentialed sleep specialists, but those digital platforms could be especially important tools for people in rural locations who might not otherwise get the care they need.

The Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine’s directory lists just 283 sleep psychologists in the United States. Many of these behavioral sleep medicine specialists are located in urban areas, near universities—leaving people outside these areas with few treatment options. Smartphone applications could help fill in this gap and potentially take some of the burden off of the health care system, according to a recent paper published in Translational Behavioral Medicine.¹ This is especially true for insomnia, a disorder that many providers agree is best treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, explains sleep psychologist Richard Blackburn, PHD, LP, CBSM, who works in Minnesota.

Rather than look for patterns of disordered sleep in slices of sensor data, a preprint paper takes into account a range of data collected during polysomnography, reports VentureBeat.

“Very little research has been done concerning the effect that non-apnea [and] hypopnea arousals have on sleep quality and general health because they are difficult to detect, [and] sleep arousals have been shown to have lower inter-scorer reliability when compared to apnea [and] hypopnea,” the paper’s authors write. “A more robust method of detecting [sleep] arousals would allow health researchers to determine the effects that these events have on health, as well as develop more effective treatments to reduce their frequency. The purpose of this work is to determine how accurately … arousals can be detected with the use of deep learning methods.”

Get the full story at venturebeat.com