App That Helps Parents Identify Potential Sleep and Breathing Problems Early

Many children experience sleep problems or breathing problems during their sleep. These issues often go either undiagnosed or unnoticed.

A app, Sleep Champ, helps parents recognize these problems in their children and seek medical advice on diagnosing a condition.

The app is based on research done in the University of Michigan Health System. It has the potential to improve the health and overall well being of many children and their families.

Developing Sleep Champ

The app’s method for identifying possible problems is based on Sleep Related Breathing Disorders Scale, also known as SRBD, created by Dr. Ronald D. Chervin and Michael S. Aldrich.

This scale is a questionnaire developed to assess an individuals sleep quality. In particular, it is meant to identify the symptoms associated with sleep-related breathing disorders.

Sleep Champ works as most other apps would on a mobile phone or tablet. It features a series of yes or no questions about a child’s behavior and exhibited characteristics.

These questions cover topics such as snoring, breathing, poor attention, hyperactivity, sleepiness and impulsiveness.

The purpose of the questions is to help determine if their child is getting quality sleep. If they are not, a sleep-related breathing disorder could be to blame. The app is not designed to diagnose any illness, however.

Parents are given a score upon completing a questionnaire. The score may recommend a trip to the doctor for an actual diagnosis. The whole point of Sleep Champ is to make parents more aware of these possibilities and create a conversation with doctors that could lead to beneficial treatment.

Helping Parents

Children need a good night’s sleep in order to grow and be successful as children. It affects almost every aspect of their lives.

This includes not just behavior but school, friendships and even their health. Getting enough sleep is important, but getting good quality sleep is often more important.

A child getting a bad night’s sleep can have a negative effect of the entire family the next day. Parents have much more of an opportunity than doctors to recognize the effects of poor sleep on their child.

Dr. Chervin says that, “Appropriate identification and treatment of childhood sleep disorders can make a huge difference, for years to come, in the lives of children and their families.”

Many parents may have questions about the effects poor sleep can have on their child, but they do not have the expertise to understand exactly what is going on.

Sleep Champ gives parents a way to help confirm that the poor sleep quality they suspect from their children could be causing other problems they are witnessing.

For parents with a concern about any sleep-related issues, from bed wetting to snoring, Sleep Champ could get them headed toward finding a solution for their child.

Finding Sleep Champ

Parents wanting to find out more information on Sleep Champ should visit the app’s website.

There they will find more information about how Sleep Champ works. In addition, there is information on how sleep effects children and sleep research.

The app is available for download through the Apple App Store for use on your iPhone or iPad and through the Google Play App Store for use on a wide array of phones and tablets running the Android operating system.