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to hear from Yvonne Burton, Epilepsy Nurse Specialist, about the SAMi-3 Sleep Activity Monitor and how it will benefit patients across the Hampshire Hospitals.
This portable technology was funded in part with Epilepsy Foundation of America. It allows daytime or night time video recording via an infrared camera of abnormal movements whilst the individual is asleep to a software device running the SAMi app. It can sound an alarm to alert another person in the household. It does not sound alarms for normal tossing and turning movements. It makes short recordings to be able to review as a team. These timestamped recordings are stored on an Ipad that is included in the package.
When discussing the possibility of someone having epilepsy it is a very difficult and life changing diagnosis. For those individuals when history and witness reports are not clear it would provide further information for those involved. It would be beneficial for the patient as they would feel they were having a little more control of the possible outcome.
Many individuals cannot afford video recording equipment and a camera phone would not have the capacity to records for 8-10 hours continuously. This device not only records but detects abnormal movements and time stamps them. This then reduces the amount of time required by the epilepsy nurse to review all the footage.
for Basingstoke & North Hampshire Hospital and Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester
“We would be expected to use this equipment for individuals who live alone or are alone for long periods of time during the day. There are many patients where the diagnosis is still unclear despite sending patient’s for expensive EEG testing and MRI’s. This device would be able to video record any abnormal movements and may reduce the need for an individual to attend further tests.
We would plan on lending the equipment for a 7 day period we could therefore use this equipment on 52 patients a year per device.
Further benefits of this are that we would hope to reduce hospital admissions and lengthy stays in hospital. This would therefore have a socioeconomic benefit.
As a Hospital we are moving further towards the digital care programme for our patient’s this would be an ideal part of that. To be able to review video footage then add this electronically to their online clinic notes would be better for both patients and medical staff.
We would also hope that with any footage recorded we could use this in our training package which is taught to in house staff and outside care agencies.”