The present inventions relate generally to articles and methods for inducing and maintaining proper sleep patterns in humans. In particular, the present invention teaches an article and associated method for optimizing a person's sleep cycle (in particular an older individual's), particularly as it relates to the individual's ability to absorb increased amounts of oxygen by virtue of the associated device's construction to encourage breathing in nasally.
Incidences of improper breathing are becoming more commonplace as individuals age. Such irregular breathing cycles often are linked to physical and/or medical impediments as obesity, high blood pressure, arthritis, chronic fatigue, depression, infections, and sleep disturbances, such as sleep apnea.
A benefit of establishing proper breathing is in overcoming sleep apnea. This medically documented disturbance is created by the individual's tongue moving in a direction towards the back of the throat, thus resulting in a fatty tissue deposit at that region being pushed over the windpipe. As a result, the individual is caused to choke, typically resulting in the person gasping and/or waking. In rare instances, coma or death can result from a severe apnea tic episode.
The accepted current practice of overcoming sleep apnea is by having the person breathe only through the nose. The mouth is shut with a chin strap to prevent mouth breathing. A low pressure air blower supplies air to the nose, for inhaling. Exhaling pressure is higher than the blower pressure and can exit from the nose. In cases where the nose malfunctions the blower air enters the mouth and the exhaust overcomes the blower pressure and air exits from the mouth. This is a rare occurrence but a few need this technique.
Portnoy, U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,232, teaches a method and device for preventing snoring and which teaches an elastic panel having an adhesive backing and a narrow horizontal slit cut therein. The panel is applied over the mouth and upper and lower lips of the person tightly enough to prevent the person's mouth from opening during sleep.
Patent Publication No. 2007/011948 involves a method of wearing a filtering face mask with a flapper valve with a low pressure blower which you must transport wherever you go. The 948'reference also does not prevent mouth breathing to occur and may require chin straps to properly function.
JP 1U4081A involves a flap for exhaling from the mouth, this creating a tongue movement that causes apnea. JP 2004/34431 involves a mouthpiece held by the teeth. In sleep it is impossible to bite down to control an object resulting in mouth breathing. Accordingly, the above methods are cumbersome and do not result in an answer to the sleep apnea problem.
To overcome sleep apnea, for the majority, the breathing must be through the nose. This results in eliminating any tongue movement and no blocking of the windpipe. Therefore the mouth remains shut during the entire sleep period, this method must be learned because most of the people with sleep apnea are mouth breathers. This is accomplished with an assist article for establishing proper breathing patterns and which includes a tape adapted to be resealably secured upon the mouth of a person including a central aperture into which the tip of the lips are placed. The tape forces the person to breathe through the nose and receives a steady supply of air for proper breathing. The subconscious mind then does not get signals that the person is starving from lack of air and therefore does not disturb a person with sleep interruptions and apnea.
An assist article for establishing proper sleeping patterns including a tape adapted to be releasably secured to the outside of the lower and upper lips of a person and including a circular inner aperture defined by an inner edge extending and rim surface, through which the tips of the lips of a person are capable of passing in extended and projecting fashion. The tape establishes a path for air flow so as to result in breathing only through the person's nasal passages, the tape preventing tongue movement which allows the epiglottis to remain open and the air free access to the windpipe, maximizing breathing volume, this in contrast to Portnoy in which the narrow slot shaped aperture defined in the elastic article prevents the user from fully seating the lips through the narrow slot configuration.
The object of this invention is for a permanent cure of apnea, proving that sleep can be achieved apnea-free after about six months without any assist article and by establishing consistent sleeping pattern of the individual with motionless lips and tongue during sleep, through the use of the present device.
Reference will now be made to the attached drawings, when read in combination with the following description, wherein like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout the several views, and in which:
Referring now to
The breathing assist device, as best shown in
A method for preventing apnea further includes the steps of maintaining an oxygen concentration level in the blood of 97% to 100% during sleep, such as by nasal breathing as a result of wearing the tape over a number of repetitive cycles, as well as after discarding the tape following successful subconscious and repetitive retraining of the wearer to prevent mouth and tongue movement, further allowing the wearer's epiglottis to remain open during sleep and resulting in free access of air to the wind pipe, maximizing breathing volume.
Concurrently the patients windpipe is left open by restricting tongue movement, this resulting from the application of the tape outside of the lower and upper lips with the central define hole, for inserting (sending) therethrough the patient's upper and lower lips.
Having described my invention, other and additional preferred embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which it pertains, and without deviating from the scope of the appended claims.
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/135,773, filed Jun. 9, 2008, which is in turn a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/043,737 filed Mar. 6, 2008, which is a Continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/465,342, filed Aug. 17, 2006.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 12135773 | Jun 2008 | US |
Child | 12509645 | US | |
Parent | 12043737 | Mar 2008 | US |
Child | 12135773 | US | |
Parent | 11465342 | Aug 2006 | US |
Child | 12043737 | US |