A high-tech mattress that can flip epilepsy patients from their front on to their side as they sleep could reduce deaths from night-time seizures.
More than 600 people a year in the UK die as a result of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP).
Around 90 per cent of these occur due to seizures at night – and most of them when patients are sleeping face down.
But the computerised mattress, which is being developed at Harvard Medical School in Boston, could save lives by cleverly detecting when someone is having a seizure and lying on their front.
It then, within a matter of seconds, ‘reshapes’ itself so that they are moved to their side or back, allowing them to breathe properly during the seizure and reducing the risk of death from asphyxiation.
Around one in 100 people – or 630,000 in the UK – have epilepsy.
It’s characterised by bursts of uncontrolled electrical activity in the brain, which prevents nerve cells from signalling to each other properly – triggering seizures that can last for several minutes.
The main treatment is anti-epileptic drugs, which make brain cells less ‘excitable’ and less likely to misfire.
The computerised mattress could save lives by cleverly detecting when someone is having a seizure and lying on their front (file image)
In more severe cases, surgery may be needed – to remove a small part of the brain that’s causing the attack, or to implant a tiny device that interrupts the chaotic signals between nerve cells.
However, around 1,000 people a year in the UK die from epilepsy-related causes and more than half of these are due to SUDEP – most of these a result of seizures that occur while patients sleep on their front, causing them to suffocate.
This has spurred the development of products such as anti-suffocation pillows, which cost around £40 to £60 and have small holes in them to allow air to pass through.
However, a spokesman for the charity SUDEP Action told Good Health the use of such pillows ‘has not been proven to prevent death’.
The new mattress looks like a standard one and is designed to fit any bed frame. Inside, it is divided up into dozens of vertical chambers.
Each chamber contains an inflatable rubber spring, connected to an air pump, which can expand in seconds from a standard height of around 3.5 in to a maximum 14 in.
If the patient starts to experience a seizure during the night, motion sensors hidden inside the foam layers near the surface pick up the abnormal movements.
Meanwhile, pressure sensors inside the mattress measure how and where the patient’s weight is distributed on the top of the bed. This varies according to whether they are on their front, back or side.
The different readings for each position are recorded and stored in a computer chip inside the mattress when it is first used, so it can recognise them later.
If the pressure readings match those seen when they are lying face down, the microchip activates the inflatable springs down one half of the mattress.
As they expand upwards, they lift and turn the body and face away from the mattress and pillow – holding them in that position so the airways are clear.
The whole process takes only around 20 seconds.
Although it frees up the airways, the mattress cannot stop the seizure itself.
The main treatment is anti-epileptic drugs, which make brain cells less ‘excitable’ and less likely to misfire (file image)
The idea for it came from the success of the campaign to reduce cot deaths (or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) by putting babies to sleep on their back rather than their front.
Before the introduction of the Back to Sleep campaign in 1991, one in every 250 babies in the UK fell victim to cot death. Since then, it has dropped to around one in 3,000.
So far, the mattress has only been tested on healthy volunteers, weighing up to 13st, to see if it can quickly and easily flip them on to their side or back.
The results, published recently in the online medical journal medRxiv, showed the mattress was able to identify correctly when someone was lying face down almost 97 per cent of the time.
And it was 100 per cent successful when it came to flipping them over – in an average time of just 21.75 seconds.
Further testing is planned before the product can be widely used, potentially in the next few years.
Commenting on its development, Ley Sander, a professor of neurology at University College London and medical director at the Epilepsy Society, said: ‘SUDEP places a huge burden of worry on people with the condition, as well as their families and friends.
‘Every day I see people in my clinics who fear going to sleep at night in case they have a fatal seizure. This smart mattress certainly has the potential to change the environment for anyone who has a seizure while sleeping in a prone position.
‘And if that can reduce their risk of SUDEP, it has to be applauded. But we must exercise caution in viewing it as the magic solution.’
However, Dr Markus Reuber, a consultant neurologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said although a high proportion of SUDEP cases happen face down, there is no guarantee that the mattress would prevent deaths by turning patients on to their side or back.
