(10-23-2021, 04:26 AM)Neelix Wrote: How does it work? Do you have to strap your phone to your body somehow?
-Neelix
Yes, you have to bind your phone at your belly.
At the Dutch apnea board the developer intruduced himself. This is the google translated version of this introduction. (long read)
04 Aug 2021, 20:17
Hey,
I am the developer of the Torena app on Android :relaxed:
At the suggestion of Arie, I came here to respond and I want to offer some more context around the motivations for developing the app.
Received a diagnosis of mild apnea in December 2019, according to the hospital not positional. Requested research myself because in recent years I often had the feeling that I had barely slept 5 hours or so, while I had been in bed for 8-9 hours (and woke up little consciously, and also not a strikingly many toilet visits or anything, but sometimes dry throat).
Then started on a solid diet and lost 16 kilos in about 4 months, purely by focusing on healthy food. I was already exercising quite intensively before my diagnosis, and I have increased that since the diagnosis (cycling about 200 km per week in the summer months, and running about 50 km per week throughout the year).
Because I suspected several causes as a basis for my apnea diagnosis, I also started researching myself. My bedroom is on a busy main road where traffic also passes at night. So start sleeping with earplugs in. I noticed myself that the few times I woke up consciously, I almost always lay on my back (I fall asleep on the right side). Then experimented with a thick pillow to counteract supine, and noticed an improvement. So I suspect that sleeping position does play a role in my story, even though they state in the hospital that this was not the case during the examination (I had the equipment hanging on my back, because I was still in the habit of lying in bed at the time). sleeping on my stomach, I learned that after the diagnosis).
So I wanted to know if I actually often lie on my back during my sleep. The range of apps for Android is then virtually non-existent, except for a few very outdated apps, which also only work halfway (alarm did not work with the app I tried at the time, for example). The alternative was Philips' Night Balance, but at that time it had been taken over from TU Delft (I thought) and was temporarily withdrawn from the market. In addition, it is also very expensive if you do not know whether the apnea is position-related. Is also not reimbursed in Belgium by the health insurance (at least not at the time of my diagnosis at the time).
In terms of design, the Android apps I found were also completely outdated. So as a professional IT developer I felt I could definitely do better, and that way I could also build it completely to my liking, and get a first experience in development for Android. And so Torena was born. Tried it myself for a couple of months, and it yielded good results. I noticed that I did lie on my back for a considerable part of the night (about 3-4 hours on a night of 8 hours), and if I set the app with an alarm (sound works best for me , shaking doesn't wake me quickly) that I could limit my supine position during the night to about 15-20 minutes. I do wake up to the sound alarm, but then I turn on my side, and I fall asleep again in no time. Result: much improved night's sleep, and much less feeling during the day that I hardly slept (so even with being woken up regularly by the sound alarm).
Then decided to offer the app in the Google Play Store in August 2020, for a small fee for all the research and work I put into it myself. And because I would happily pay that amount myself knowing what results I get with the app. Also just to try how that works in Google Play Store with paid apps, so especially a big discovery for myself in the whole app thing that I had no experience with until then.
In January 2021, at the request of the doctors in the hospital who heard my story and experiences, had a new sleep study done, in order to compare the pure figures with my first sleep study and to determine whether the improvement was purely a feeling , or indeed is apparent from the figures.
I also used the Torena app that night, comparing the results to the hospital results the next morning. These turned out to be an almost exact match with the hospital equipment. Only when I was in between back and side position did they sometimes deviate, because both Torena and the camera in the hospital then make a guess as to which position it is then. Torena does this based on device orientation (which is also adjustable in the app), the camera does this based on the camera images. So that is not a certainty, and I am more convinced of the Torena app in which you can choose it purely with degrees on a circle of 360 degrees when a position is back and when left etc. The doctors in the hospital were very surprised that I could get such good results from the Torena app. However, with the message that they cannot actively recommend it to patients, because there is currently no scientific basis.
My result of the sleep study in January 2021 was also astonishing, hardly any apneas were detected, and virtually no supine (when I had the equipment attached to my stomach). So declared cured of my apnea. According to the doctors, because of a combination of things: weight loss, more sports, learned a different sleeping position for sleeping (from lying on your stomach to lying on your side), better sleep hygiene (going to bed more at a fixed time), the earplugs to sleep better without noise pollution from the street (I did stop at the end of 2020, and for the time being still without much trouble), and then the Torena app with which I manage to avoid lying on my back as much as possible.
So for me more than a successful trajectory, and also in the hospital they were very enthusiastic to see that a patient takes a different path than this towards the apnea devices, and actively works on that and does not just resign himself to the diagnosis and standard treatment. An apnea device was also introduced to me after the first diagnosis, and I absolutely did not like that. I therefore hope that the Torena app can find its way to other apnea patients who want to monitor their sleeping position and try out whether avoiding the supine position gives an improvement, if only in combination with other treatments.
Until I got the question from a Torena user from America, I hadn't gotten acquainted with OSCAR, because I'm not very active in the whole apnea thing either (since I've had little trouble with everything I'm on now please note). Fairly spartan for me, but I didn't really delve into it too much. Perhaps for users who have more experience with apnea devices that it is easier to use. The graphs that I saw appear in OSCAR were very similar to those of the hospital.
I hope the above has given you a better insight into the origin of the Torena app
If anyone wants to provide an integration for Torena within OSCAR, or has suggestions for the Torena app, I am always willing to provide the necessary support or to see where I can improve the app. I myself do not start with the integration in Oscar itself, since my C++ knowledge leaves much to be desired. That is why we chose to build in an export functionality towards SomnoPose CSV format, so that you can still read the data into OSCAR.
If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
I'm going on vacation in a few days, so a response may take a while
lightly_smiling_face:
greetings,
Kurt
