PhD: PISANO The first 100 nights of sleep apnea therapy

Updated: almost 2 years ago
Deadline: 05 May 2022

Are you eager to work in a multidisciplinary team to improve sleep apnea treatment? The Biomedical Diagnostic (BM/d) Lab at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TUe, department of Electrical Engineering) is seeking two outstanding PHD candidates to work in close collaboration with the Máxima Medical Center, Center for Sleep Medicine Kempenhaeghe and Philips Research.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders, with serious short- and long-term health consequences. The most common treatment of choice is continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which -when tolerated and used adequately- can significantly improve sleep quality, daytime symptoms, and cardiovascular health sequelae. However, in practice 40% to 80% of all CPAP patients become nonadherent to treatment. Other therapies such as mandibular advancement and positional therapy are becoming more widely used, also as first line therapy choice, or in case of non-compliance to CPAP.
Current measures of treatment success focus on functional aspects of the therapy such as number of hours and nights of use, but very poorly reflect the development of the symptoms of the patient. Furthermore, the few studies that have focused on exploring physiological characteristics that influence treatment response have been focused on measurements at the sleep lab for only one night, often at the very beginning of the therapy.

The first 100 nights of OSA therapy are decisive for the longer-term success of the treatment. In this project we will capitalize on our advanced (wearable) sleep sensor technology to follow the first 100 days of therapy in a cohort of newly diagnosed OSA patients. The experiment will run at the Máxima MC sleep center, a clinic with vast experience in the diagnosis, and management of sleep apnea.

The aim of this project is to 1) find structural sleep and respiratory parameters that predict effectiveness, as well as tolerance and compliance to the different OSA therapies and 2) track these parameters over time to monitor treatment effectiveness and its relation to the evolution of symptoms and the possible development of sleep disruptions later on. These insights will help formulate strategies to improve therapy selection and personalization, predict treatment success, and improve long-term adherence.

In this project we have two PhD vacancies:

PhD 1 will focus on measuring the effect of treatment on sleep architecture, applying newly developed measures of sleep architecture such as survival dynamics, hypnodensity and multi-night analyses, on data acquired with wearable photoplethysmography and actigraphy.

PhD 2 will focus on the objective and subjective evaluation of treatment response and prediction of treatment success, not only taking into account clinical outcome parameters such as treatment compliance and residual symptoms but also daytime functioning and subjective measures of (perceived) success.

When applying please express any preference for either of the positions. It is also possible to apply for both in one application.

Environment

TU/e

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) is one of Europe's top technological universities, situated in the heart of one of Europe's largest high-tech innovation ecosystems. Research at TU/e is characterized by a combination of academic excellence and a strong real-world impact. This impact is pursued via close collaboration with high-tech industries and clinical partners.

The Biomedical Diagnostics (BM/d) lab of the Signal Processing Systems (SPS) group is part of the Electrical Engineering department. The BM/d lab has a strong track record in electrophysiological signal processing, physiological modelling and quantitative analysis of biosignals, ranging from ultrasound and MRI to electrophysiology. For more information, see here .

In the Healthcare field, TU/e is part of a large collaborative multidisciplinary research program called the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC). One of the central themes within e/MTIC is improved diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. For this project we are looking for a PhD candidate who will be appointed at TU/e, but also embedded for a part of his/her time at Maxima Medical Center, Kempenhaeghe and Philips Research, all located in the direct vicinity of TU/e.



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