Summary
MiNap is a smart watch application to serve the purpose of a sleep diary. Designed to replace conventional paper-based sleep diaries, MiNap embodies the fusion of technology and research objectives, facilitating the seamless transition from analog to digital sleep data collection.
Figure: MiNap App on an Apple Watch
Details
Introduction
The field of sleep medicine has made significant strides in understanding the importance of sleep and its impact on overall health and well-being. Sleep medicine studies involve research and investigation into various aspects of sleep, sleep disorders, and their effects on mental and physical health. Researchers in this field study the different stages of sleep, sleep patterns, circadian rhythms, and the underlying causes of sleep disorders. They also explore the impact of sleep disorders on mental health, cardiovascular health, neurological disorders, and other medical conditions. Researchers are now utilizing consumer-grade wearable devices to track sleep, but current devices have limitations around recognizing the time when a participant falls asleep and wakes up.
Problem
The project sponsor, the Eisenberg Family Depression Center, through its Mobile Technologies Core and campus-wide partners, attempts to accelerate research with mobile technologies such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin. One specific area of need for researchers at both Michigan Medicine and the University of Michigan is being able to ask research participants to log specific events right on their smart watches. For this reason, researchers normally employ paper sleep diaries to help with data analysis.
Solution
As opposed to other sleep tracking technologies, MiNap Smartwatch application helps to mitigate the limitation of figuring out when a person falls asleep vs. if they are using their phone in bed or wakes up. The simple UI only requires the participant to click on a button while about to sleep and once after waking up, promising more compliant and better data collection. MiNap can thus replace paper sleep diaries.
Figure: The UI/UX of the MiNap Smartwatch App
Architecture
The MiNap application is currently developed for Apple Smartwarches and serves as a model/prototype for other researchers to use in their studies so that participant-provided data can be logged right on the participant’s smartwatches.
An companion cross-platform mobile application helps participants to share their feedback on the recent sleep cycle, as well as has the capability to house data visualizations to allow researchers to have real-time monitoring capabilities over the collected data.
The application has been set within AWS, and the data is backed up into Michigan Medicine’s oracle database every 5 minutes using an automation script written in python and containerized with Docker. The application source code and associated resources are available at the Depression Center's GitHub repository (https://github.com/DepressionCenter/MiNap).
Figure: Schematic Workflow of the solution. Credit: Gabriel Mongefranco, MiNap project sponsor.
Conclusion
The horizon of MiNap's potential is expansive. Future iterations envision the integration of Garmin, Fitbit, and other smartwatch ecosystems, amplifying its impact on research endeavors. Furthermore, including customizable features and data access levels for each researcher can ensure that the companion mobile application aligns seamlessly with the diverse needs of various research projects.
Notes
- See attachments section for presentation slides and documents used during the planning phase.
Resources
Recorded Presentation
Presentation at the Mobile Expert Data Network (MDEN) meeting on July 31, 2023:
Links
About the Author
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Anika Raisa Chowdhury is a graduate student pursuing Masters of Data Science, at the University of Michigan . Anika has worked as a project Manager for MiNap Sleep diary during her Internship at University of Michigan Information and Technology Services in Summer2023. Alongside Assuming the role of a project manager, she also worked on the backend, to set up the databases and the synchronization scripts.
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