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Abstract

A method and apparatus are disclosed for monitoring and assessing the occurrences of a person's snoring activity. Being small and portable, the apparatus is easily attached to a subject and detects and quantifies the subject's snoring behavior. It automatically provides an immediate display of the average number of snores per hour (i.e., a 'snore index') and an indication of the sound intensity of these snores, which are measures of the subject's snoring activity. In a preferred embodiment, this apparatus includes: (a) a sensor to capture the temporal variation of a subject's snoring activity, (b) an analog to digital converter to sample and digitize the captured data, (c) a microprocessor to process the digital data and control the apparatus' operation, (d) a memory device for data storage, (e) a display means, and (f) an embedded firmware program that controls the: (i) sampling and storage of the data, (ii) analysis of the data to compute the average number of snores per hour and their intensity, and (iii) the operation of the display means and the possible downloading of the data.

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First Claim