Date of Award

Spring 5-12-2018

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advisor

Ali Abedi

Second Committee Member

Marie Hayes

Third Committee Member

Richard Eason

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which causes decline in the cognitive functions, is the

major lead of dementia. AD begins showing damage in memory, making patients

dependent on caregivers. Treating AD requires early diagnosis of its signs. The

initial sign of AD is mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is the middle stage

between a healthy patient and one diagnosed with AD. The proposed sleep

monitoring system is capable of diagnosing MCI symptoms.

MCI patients are characterized with sleep fragmentation and sleep disorder. The

sleep fragmentation is defined as awakenings that interrupt the normal sleep. The

proposed system in this thesis uses force sensors to capture movements that can

potentially characterize as sleep fragmentation. The sensors were arranged on a

mattress cover to pick up the body movements regardless of sleep position.

A wireless sensor system was designed, implemented and tested in Wireless

Sensor Networks (WiSe-Net) laboratory at the University of Maine. The system

operates at 2.4GHz with a range of 300ft. It has been tested on control subjects,

healthy people, and seniors diagnosed with MCI and AD. The system is capable of

determining the number and average periods of sleep fragmentation to assist with

diagnosing MCI.

Download

Files over 10MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share