JP2001258855A - Health judgment method and judgment device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To judge the health of a person by arranging an organism signal detecting means for detecting the organism signal of the person, continuously judging the sleep stage from the output signal of the organism signal detecting means to determine a sleep stage transition pattern, calculating a health index from the sleep stage transition pattern by a health index arithmetic means, and judging the health of the person by use of the health index. SOLUTION: This health judgment device comprises the organism signal detecting means for detecting the organism signal of the person, a sleep stage judgment means for continuously estimating the sleeping stage from the output signal of the organism signal detecting means, the health index arithmetic means for calculating health indexes such as the degree of REM cycle turbulence, sleep efficiency and the like from the sleep stage transition pattern, and the health judgment mean for judging the health of the person by use of at least one of the degree of REM cycle turbulence and the sleep efficiency of the health indexes. The organism signal detecting means comprises an air mat laid under the body of the person, a minute differential pressure sensor for detecting the internal pressure of the air mat, and an organism signal extracting means for extracting the organism signal such as heart beat, respiration or the like from the output of the minute differential pressure sensor.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for judging a health condition and a device therefor, and more particularly to a method and a device for judging a health condition of a person's heart from transition data of sleep stages.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a method of managing human health, there is a method of regularly receiving a medical examination by a doctor. However, an abnormality such as a delicate change in the body is missed in a medical examination about once every few months. In many cases, and when health is impaired due to mental stress, it is difficult to grasp by regular medical examinations and medical interviews. In addition, patients suffering from physical disorders due to mental stress cannot accurately communicate their symptoms to a doctor. Therefore, means for continuously and objectively grasping the state of health on a daily basis are desired.

When judging human health, sleep is often used as a barometer, and it is well known that sleep and health are closely related.
Health and the depth and quality of sleep at night are closely linked to the mood and morale of the following day, while mental stress and poor physical condition can alter sleep depth and patterns. And a tendency that comfortable sleep cannot be obtained. From this, it is considered that it is effective to know the sleep state in order to grasp the human health state, particularly the mental health state.

Although it is known that there is a close relationship between the sleep state and the health state of the subject, objective and highly reliable mental health states can be obtained from data on the activity of the nervous system during sleep. At present, there is no established determination method that has the property and can be easily applied to daily health management.

On the other hand, a sleep polysomnograph (PSG) is generally used as a method for knowing the sleep state of a human. Data such as exercise can be obtained, and various information of a sleeping subject can be estimated from these data.

However, in order to perform measurement by PSG, it is necessary to attach many electrodes to the subject's body and face, and it takes at least several days to one week before a natural sleep state can be recorded. Therefore, it is practically impossible for a subject to apply PSG while performing a normal daily life. Further, since the use of PSG requires a large amount of cost, it is not convenient in terms of cost.

[0007]

It has been found that it is effective to know the state of sleep and its quality in order to know the daily health of the subject, but at present it is an objective that can be used for personal health management. There is no proper judgment method. Also,
At present, there is no sleep state detecting device that is convenient enough to be used by an individual on a daily basis and requires only a small cost.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost, low-cost human health condition based on cranial nervous system activity data during sleep without placing a physical or mental burden on the subject. It is an object of the present invention to provide an objective and highly reliable method and apparatus for judging a health condition.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for judging a health condition, wherein a biological signal detecting means for detecting a human biological signal is arranged, and a sleep stage is determined from an output signal of the biological signal detecting means. A sleep stage transition pattern is obtained by continuous determination, a health index is calculated from the sleep stage transition pattern by a health index calculating means, and a human health state is determined using the health index.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the biological signal detecting means includes an air mat laid under the human body, a micro differential pressure sensor for detecting an internal pressure of the air mat, and a heart rate signal based on the output of the micro differential pressure sensor. And a biological signal extracting means for extracting a biological signal such as respiration.

[0011] A third invention is characterized in that, in the first invention, at least one of a REM cycle disorder and a sleep efficiency is included as a health index used for determining a health condition of a person.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a health condition determining apparatus, wherein a biological signal detecting means for detecting a biological signal of a person, and a sleep level determining means for continuously estimating a sleep level from an output signal of the biological signal detecting means. Means, a health index calculating means for calculating a health index such as a REM cycle disorder and sleep efficiency from the transition pattern of the sleep stage, and a person using at least one of the REM cycle disorder and sleep efficiency of the health index. And a health condition judging means for judging a health condition.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the biological signal detecting means according to the fourth aspect of the present invention uses the air mat laid under the human body, a small differential pressure sensor for detecting the internal pressure of the air mat, and an output of the small differential pressure sensor. It is characterized by comprising a biological signal extracting means for extracting a biological signal such as a heartbeat and a respiration.

In a sixth aspect based on the fifth aspect, the biological signal detecting means further comprises an absolute pressure sensor for detecting the presence of a person in bed.

[0015]

In the method and apparatus for judging the state of health of the present invention, a health index is calculated from the transition pattern of the sleep stage obtained from the output of the biological signal detecting means, and a method and apparatus for judging human health based on these indices. Therefore, the determination is made by the numerical value, and it is possible to make an objective determination.

Further, since the biological signal detecting means disposed under the body is used, the detection of the biological signal and the judgment of the sleep state can be obtained without imposing physical and mental burdens during sleep.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a health condition judging device according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system configuration of an embodiment of a health condition determination device to which the present invention is applied, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a configuration of a biological signal detecting unit of the embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the health condition judging device of this embodiment comprises a biological signal detecting means 1, a sleep stage judging means 2, a health index calculating means 3, and a health condition judging means 4. That is, a biological signal such as a heartbeat signal, a respiratory signal, and a turn signal detected by the biological signal detecting means 1 is detected,
The sleep stage of the subject is judged by the sleep stage judging means 2 incorporating these signals, and the health index calculating means 3 calculates a health index indicating the health state of the subject by numerical values using the transition data of the sleep stage. The health condition determination device 4 determines the health condition of the subject from the health index.

FIG. 2 shows details of the biological signal detecting means 1.
The air mat 5 is arranged on the bedding 12, and a fine differential pressure sensor 6 for measuring a change in the internal pressure of the air mat 5 is connected via an air tube 8. Similarly, air tube 8
An absolute pressure sensor 7 for measuring the absolute pressure in the air mat 5 is connected via the. When the subject lies on the air mat 5, the absolute pressure sensor 7 detects the presence of the subject in the bed, and the minute differential pressure sensor 6 detects pressure fluctuations in the air mat 5 due to the subject's heartbeat, breathing, or other body movements.

The micro differential pressure sensor 6 used in the present embodiment is a condenser microphone type micro differential pressure sensor, and detects a change in capacitance between the pressure receiving surface and the counter electrode caused by a change in pressure. And the principle of detecting the differential pressure. The pressure difference in the air mat 5 is detected by the fine differential pressure sensor 6.

The biological signal extracting means 9 extracts a heartbeat signal, a respiratory signal, and a turning frequency signal from the output signal of the slight differential pressure sensor 6 using a filter circuit or data processing means. Various biological signals and noises are superimposed on the output signal of the minute differential pressure sensor 6, but the biological signal extracting means 9 utilizes the characteristic of the heartbeat signal and the respiratory signal, each having a unique signal waveform. Heart rate signal, respiratory signal, by applying appropriate filters and data processing techniques,
Alternatively, a signal such as a turning frequency signal is extracted.

On the other hand, the absolute pressure sensor 7 is a sensor for measuring the absolute pressure inside the air mat 5, and the absolute pressure sensor 7
A signal that determines whether the subject is on the air mat 5 or not is output by the subject on-bed detecting means 10 connected to the air mat 5.

The sleep stage determination means 2 determines which of the awake state, REM sleep state and non-REM sleep state the subject is in based on the heartbeat signal and the respiration signal extracted by the biological signal extraction means 9. Means.

The sleep stage determining means 2 comprises an RR interval calculator 21 and a sleep stage determiner 22. The RR interval calculator 21 is a calculator that calculates the degree of variation of the RR interval of the heartbeat signal obtained by the biological signal extracting means 9,
From the output, the sleep stage determiner 22 determines which of the awake state, the REM sleep stage, and the non-REM sleep stage is in.

The health index calculating means 3 of the present embodiment comprises a REM cycle disorder degree calculating unit 31 and a sleep efficiency 32, and both of them convert the transition pattern of the sleep stage output from the sleep stage determining unit 2 into data. By performing the processing, two health indexes, that is, the degree of disorder in the REM cycle and the sleep efficiency are calculated.

The health condition judging means 4 judges the health condition of the subject from the value of the health index output from the health index calculating means 3, and compares the value of the health index such as the degree of disorder in the REM cycle and the sleep efficiency with the person. The level of the health condition is associated with the level of the health condition from an experiment in advance, and the level of the health condition corresponding to the index data output from the health index calculation means 3 is determined.

Next, the operation of the health condition judging device of the first embodiment will be described. When the subject lies on the air mat 5 placed on the bedding 12, the pressure of the air mat 5 increases due to the weight thereof, and a signal indicating that the subject is on the floor is output from the output of the absolute pressure sensor 7. At this point, the biological signal extraction unit 9 starts extracting the biological signal, records the biological signal, and outputs the heartbeat signal and the respiration signal to the sleep stage determination unit 2.

The procedure for determining the sleep stage in the sleep stage determination means 2 will be described below. When the subject shifts from the awake state to the sleep state, the heart rate, which is quite high at 70 bps in the awake state even in the bed state, rapidly decreases to about 20% when the subject enters deep sleep. It is also known that when the respiratory signal transitions from awake to sleep, the breathing becomes irregular.
Together with these, it is determined that the awake state has shifted to the sleep state. Further, in the case where the awake state is entered from the sleep stage, a rapid rise in heart rate and a change in respiration occur as in the case of falling asleep, and it is possible to easily determine that the state has shifted from the sleep state to the awake state.

On the other hand, the REM sleep stage and the non-REM sleep stage have different characteristics in the fluctuation pattern of the heartbeat signal waveform in each sleep stage, so that the REM sleep stage and the non-REM sleep stage are determined. That is, in the REM sleep stage, it is known that the fluctuation of the R wave (the peak portion of the heartbeat signal) of the heartbeat signal waveform is irregular, and the appearance of the peak portion (the Rwave) of the extracted heartbeat signal is generated. The sleep stage determiner 22 determines the REM sleep stage and the non-REM sleep stage from the variation in the interval, that is, the variation in the RR interval.

The variation in the RR interval of the heartbeat signal waveform is obtained, for example, by calculating the standard deviation and the average value of the RR interval of the heartbeat signal waveform, and using the ratio as the variation of the RR interval. The sleep stage determiner 22 determines from the magnitude of the value.

The sleep stage determiner 22 of the sleep stage determination means 2
In, the awake stage and the sleep stage are determined from the change in the heart rate of the heartbeat signal output from the biological signal detection means 1.
Further, among the sleep stages, the distinction between the REM sleep stage and the non-REM sleep stage is determined by the R-R interval output from the RR interval calculator 21.
-Determined from the value of the variation of the R interval. By executing the above determination procedure, the sleep stages are continuously recorded, and the data of the sleep stages is output to the health index calculating means 3.

The health index calculating means 3 obtains an index effective for judging a health condition from the sleep stage transition pattern output from the sleep stage judgment means 2 and uses it as an objective health condition judgment index. For these indices, numerical indices are obtained from sleep stage patterns. As a result of experiments, the present inventors have confirmed that sleep efficiency and REM cycle disorder are effective.

Here, the sleep efficiency is a value obtained by subtracting the half-wake time from the sleep time, that is, the ratio of the time of the sleep stage of the sleep pattern obtained by the sleep stage determination means 2 to the time of the sleep stage. The sleep efficiency indicates the ratio of the actual sleep state in the sleep time, and the greater the health state, the larger the value.

On the other hand, the degree of REM cycle disorder indicates the degree of dispersion of the intervals at which REM sleeps appear several times in one night's sleep. The intervals at which REM sleeps appear are obtained from the sleep stage transition pattern. The variance value of the data is calculated, and this is used as the rem cycle disorder degree.

In the health index calculating means 3, the rem cycle disorder calculator 31 calculates the rem cycle disorder and outputs this data to the health determining means 4. On the other hand, the sleep efficiency calculator 32 calculates the value of the sleep efficiency and outputs the same to the health condition determination means 4 in the same manner.

In the health condition judging means 4, the data relating the health condition in correspondence with the values of the two indices of REM cycle disorder and sleep efficiency, and the health index data output from the health index calculating means 3. The values are compared with each other to determine the health condition of the subject.

It is well known that the higher the value of the sleep efficiency, the better the health condition is. It is considered that the lower the REM cycle disorder, the healthier. The REM sleep stage appears at approximately constant intervals between 90 minutes and 100 minutes in healthy people, but if the health condition is impaired due to mental or physical causes, the larger this value is, the better the health condition May be considered abnormal. According to the findings of the present inventors, it has been confirmed that subjects subjected to mental stress have a large degree of disorder in REM cycle and a tendency to decrease sleep efficiency. It is effective for objectively grasping the health condition of a person.

In the present embodiment, the degree of disorder in the REM cycle and the sleep efficiency are adopted as the health indexes, but other indexes may be used as long as they can be quantified. Further, although a configuration in which an air mat and a micro differential pressure sensor are combined is employed as the biological signal detecting means, the present invention is not limited to this as long as it is a means capable of detecting a biological signal.

[0039]

It is already known that there is a close relationship between the sleep state and the human health state. However, the activity state of the cerebral nervous system during sleep, that is, the objective state of the mental health state from the data of the sleep stage is known. At present, there is no established determination method which has high reliability and high reliability and can be easily applied to daily health management.

As a method of knowing a sleep stage, a conventional method using a sleep polysomnograph (PSG) requires a very large physical and physical burden on a person to be used normally in daily life. There was a problem if the cost was large and the cost required for this was large.

According to the method and apparatus for judging the state of health of the present invention, the sleep stage can be judged in a non-invasive manner, that is, without putting a physical and mental burden on the subject,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and a device capable of easily grasping a daily health condition by quantifying a human health condition as a health index from the data. As a result, it can be easily used not only in medical facilities but also in each home, and a great effect can be expected in managing human health.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a configuration of a biological signal detection unit according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Biological signal detection means 2 Sleep stage determination means 21 R-R interval calculator 22 Sleep stage determiner 3 Health index calculation means 31 Rem cycle disorder degree calculator 32 Sleep efficiency calculator 4 Health state determination means 5 Air mat 6 Slight differential pressure Sensor 7 Absolute pressure sensor 8 Air tube 9 Biological signal extraction means 10 Subject occupancy detection means 12 Bedding

Claims (6)

[Claims] A biological signal detecting means for detecting a biological signal of a person is arranged, and a sleep stage transition pattern is determined by continuously determining a sleep stage from an output signal of the biological signal detecting unit.
A health condition determining method in which a health indicator is calculated from the sleep stage transition pattern by a health indicator calculating means, and a health condition of a person is determined using the health indicator. 2. The biological signal detecting means extracts an air mat laid under a human body, a micro differential pressure sensor for detecting an internal pressure of the air mat, and a biological signal such as heart rate and respiration from an output of the micro differential pressure sensor. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a biological signal extracting unit that performs the processing. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the health index used to determine a person's health condition includes at least one of a rem cycle disorder and sleep efficiency. 4. A biological signal detecting means for detecting a biological signal of a person, a sleep stage determining means for continuously estimating a sleep stage from an output signal of the biological signal detecting unit, and a REM cycle from a transition pattern of the sleep stage. A health index calculating means for calculating a health index such as a disorder degree and a sleep efficiency; and a health state determining means for judging a human health state using at least one of the REM cycle disorder degree and the sleep efficiency of the health index. Health condition determination device. 5. The biological signal detecting means includes: an air mat laid under a human body; a fine differential pressure sensor for detecting an internal pressure of the air mat; and a biological signal such as heart rate and respiration from an output of the fine differential pressure sensor. The health condition judging device according to claim 4, comprising a biological signal extracting means for extracting. 6. The health condition judging device according to claim 5, wherein the biological signal detecting means further includes an absolute pressure sensor for detecting the presence of a person in bed.