Apnea Response System

Premature infants are often born with structures/systems not sufficiently developed enough to remember to breathe.  It is for this reason that doctors use an electro-mechanical approach to detect when these infants forget to breathe, thus alerting a caretaker to stimulate the infant and reminding him/her to breathe. 

There is a term, apnea, for this suspension of external breathing.  It is believed that when an infant experiences apnea, stops breathing, apnea, may be one of the major causes of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), a reliable detection system can be a way to help keep infants alive.

The systems currently used in hospitals are large and complicated and require sensors to be properly placed on the infant. In addition, false alarms going off even though the infant is actually breathing are fairly common. The complications and false alarms often cause difficulties when the system is sent home with a baby whose breathing needs to be monitored. Sensors may be improperly placed, giving incorrect readings, and the false alarm rate often creates a false sense of security in the parents.

Dr. Leonard Eisenfeld, a neonatologist at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, has patented the idea for a much simpler apnea detection system, one involving a wireless EKG machine along with a band-aid-sized patch with a sensor and a stimulator to be placed on an infant's chest. Students in the College of Technology are working to develop his idea into a working system to help save the lives of the tiniest patients.

Student participants and affiliations:

• Khalid Alshehhi, University of Hartford
• Brittany Mejia, University of Hartford
• M. Shalane Regan, University of Hartford
• Paimon Sorornejad, University of Hartford
• Dewey Tsang, Tunxis Community College