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BME graduate student Zachary Beattie was the student presenter at the annual May meeting of the members of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS), Oregon Chapter. The ARCS Foundation, Inc. is a national volunteer women’s organization which provides scholarships to the “best and brightest” students who are United States citizens studying the natural sciences, medicine and engineering. Zach was awarded a three-year ARCS scholarship in 2006. Eight other Biomedical Engineering students at OHSU have held or currently hold ARCS scholarships.
Zach is currently in his third year of the Biomedical Engineering PhD program. His research is part of a larger program aimed at the development and evaluation of engineering systems that improve the care of patients with neurodegenerative diseases and chronic health problems. This research seeks to improve patients’ quality of life and to enable care to be delivered at the point of care (outside of clinics), such as in the home.
Zach’s presentation was entitled, “Automatically Detecting Sleep Apnea Using Load Cells Placed Under the Bed”. Abstract: Sleep apnea, the transient cessation of breathing during sleep, is a major medical problem, with significant health consequences. Current diagnostic methods require patients to spend a night in a sleep laboratory, connected to multiple electrodes and subjected to video recording. These conditions make sleep difficult for most people. Zach Beattie’s research in OHSU’s Division of Biomedical Engineering is focused on the development of a new, unobtrusive method for the detection of sleep apnea. This approach uses load cells (force measuring devices) under the bed legs and sophisticated signal processing to measure respiratory rhythms in the subject’s own bed. No electrodes or video cameras are required, and the measurements can also be used to record heart rate and movements associated with sleep disturbances.