title: Bed-based instrumentation for unobtrusive sleep quality assessment in severely disabled autistic children.
abstract: The relationship between sleep quality and daytime wellness and performance in severely disabled, autistic children is not well understood. While polysomnography and, more recently, actigraphy serve as means to obtain sleep assessment data from neurotypical children and adults, these techniques are not well-suited to severely autistic children. This paper presents recent progress on a bed sensor suite that can unobtrusively track physiological and behavioral parameters used to assess sleep quality. Electromechanical films and load cells provide data that yield heart rate, respiration rate, center of position, in-and-out-of-bed activity, and general movement, while thermocouples are used to detect bed-wetting events.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.forename: Ahmad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Suliman
authors.forename: Punit
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prakash
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.lastname: Shangxian Wang
authors.forename: Bala
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Natarajan
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Warren
mesh_terms: D056044:Actigraphy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D053206:Nocturnal Enuresis / Q000175:diagnosis; D017286:Polysomnography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D056152:Respiratory Rate / Q000502:physiology; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*