Developed by medical device inventor Richard Mills, SleepCogni—now seeking funding via Kickstarter—is a bedside sleep device that is backed by technology and supported by Sheffield Hallam University and international sleep expert and founder of the London Sleep Centre, Irshaad Ebrahim, MBChB, MRCPsych.
“I became convinced it wasn’t just the hour before bed that explained why I couldn’t fall asleep, it was the whole modern lifestyle,” says Mills in a release. “The stress and over-stimulus in daily life is contributing to the inability to fall sleep and stay asleep. SleepCogni has proved successful in clinical trials and endorsed by those who have seen it in action.”
Clinical studies of the pilot trial at Sheffield Hallam University found in insomnia subjects that 50% of those in the trial reported an improvement in quality of sleep and 40% reported an increase in sleep duration, with the remainder of patients showing no change.
“I have been waiting for someone to come to me with something tangible that patients could use themselves to treat their insomnia,” Ebrahim says. “SleepCogni is an integrated piece of scientifically validated research based treatment for insomnia. With devices like SleepCogni I see a trend to provide the patient with the tools to treat their own insomnia rather than relying on seeing professionals and leaving only the more serious insomnia to be treated one-to-one”.
SleepCogni monitors heart rate, mental alertness, skin temperature, and movement. It is a non-invasive, and as simple to use as pressing a button. Personalised to the user, SleepCogni interacts with the patient to produce a program of audio, visual, and tactile cues to help induce sleep. The device also trains the brain with its programs, which means the more it’s used, the more effective it becomes.
For many, winding down before bed involves films, phones, browsing the Internet, and devices that emit blue light. SleepCogni states that it reverses the ill effects of all of this with a technology that doesn’t stimulate. “SleepCogni is providing a means to switch off today’s busy active minds, by combining environmental and personal data into an interactive sensory experience and the gold standard insomnia treatment,” Richard says. “It’s a modern means of counting sheep and clinically proven to help.”
SleepCogni is available for preorder on Kickstarter. The device will go on sale to the wider public in September 2016.
