Vancouver’s Tochtech Technologies has won $20,000 in the 2020 AGE-WELL National Impact Challenge.
Tochtech has developed Sleepsense, a non-wearable sleep tracker that allows caregivers to monitor the overnight safety of older adults. Sleepsense is designed to monitor residents and alert caregivers when a resident experiences a health risk, such as an abnormal heart or breathing rate, during sleep.
About the size of a mobile phone, the Sleepsense device is placed under the leg or frame of the bed. It uses high-precision sensors and algorithm technology to measure BCG waves (ballistic forces generated by the heart) and report heart and respiration rates. Notifications and alarms also go to mobile devices carried by staff.
Sleepsense monitors residents’ quality of sleep and sleep patterns, and notifies caregivers if a resident is getting out of bed, allowing staff to intervene and avert a potential fall or wandering. It detects body movement and vital signs no matter where the sleeper is positioned on the bed. The resident does not have to wear any technology or sleep on a smart bed pad.
Continuously monitoring residents as they sleep augments the in-person checks that staff in long-term care are required to conduct throughout the night,.
Tochtech will use the prize money for a three-month pilot with long-term care homes, product enhancement, marketing and commercialization of Sleepsense, which will be introduced to the market in 2021.