Design / Motivation and Purpose

My mother has a long-term poor sleep quality because my father's annoying snoring. After I search the websites, I find out that the causes of snoring: Snoring happens when you can't move air freely through your nose and mouth during sleep. Often caused by the narrowing of your airway, either from poor sleep posture or abnormalities of the soft tissues in your throat. A narrow airway gets in the way of smooth breathing and creates the sound of snoring. There are about 20% snoring people who always could not breathe briefly while they are sleeping. Snoring could indicate sleep apnea, we call "obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome."(OSAHS) If it often occurs, people would feel fatigue and sleepiness during the day. It even leads to the heart and Cerebrovascular Diseases. And we know that snoring is not simple a noise problem, it is a HEALTH problem. The ways to solve snoring problem include medical treatment, dietary therapy, positive airway pressure, oral appliances and surgical treatment. Pharmacological treatments for snoring include inhalation of lubricating fluid, pseudoephedrine; patients with allergic rhinitis use beclomet nasal spray therapy. According the Hsueh Yu Lee says, the doctor of Dept. of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, that patients keep sleep on their sides will reduce 30% snore rate. This makes it more likely for your tongue and soft tissues to drop and obstruct your airway. Smooth breath let the snore noise less even vanished. The meaning behind the result is let your body obtain more oxygen during nice quality sleepy period by reducing the rate of respiratory pause and obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome. Sleep on one's side absolutely cannot solve all the problems because to keep sleep on one's side whole night is very difficult, and it is not efficient for everyone. The serious patients need positive airway pressure or surgery on time to make them feel better, but sleep on one's side undoubtedly is the best cost-efficient way. In 2006 Aug., "non-supine position" had become the main method in positional therapy. American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) even collects it, and the positional therapy also becomes the curing reference of doctors. According to above lists, I create this invention to make it easy to sleep on one's side all night in order to stop snoring.

Invention characteristics and originalities

1. To wear it outside your pajamas. You can take off the wedge vest (Stegosaurus vest), replace it and easy to clean it.

2. Small size, easy to carry.

3. Different sizes, heights for different shapes.

4. Easy to keep sleep on your side because the wedge vest has been fixed.

5. Much cheaper than those expensive oral appliances and surgery.

6. Compared with other snore stopper pillows, stegosaurus vest is easier to make you sleep on your side for long time.

Effectiveness and Instructions

You have to put on the stegosaurus vest on before going to bed, and then keep sleep on your side. Note that the vest must fit the body, not too loose.

Other considerations

1. It needs different heights of wedge pillows to suit every single mattress firm.

2. At the same time, you can take methods followed to reduce the snoring symptoms: do not drink before getting to sleep, do not drink strong tea, coffee and do not take some special medicines. Alcohol, sedatives, sleeping pills and anti-allergy medicine would lead your breath to light and slow, thereby loosening up your throat muscle. It makes pharyngeal soft tissue easier to obstruct airway.

Invention making processes

1. Motivation
I decided to take part in the competition under my teacher's encouragement. After discussing with my mother, I select "how to stop snoring" as our subject.

2. Search the websites
I searched many websites about snore stoppers on the market and found that the methods of using them are too complicated; even you will probably feel uncomfortable as you use them. (Take positive airway pressure for example, you have to fit a mask or other device over your nose or your nose and mouth. Second, you have to connect a tube between the mask and the machine's motor. Finally, the motor will blow air into your mouth so that you will feel dry. Besides, you must reposition the lower jaw while you are using the oral appliance, and it makes your teeth and joints uncomfortable. The ordinary wedge pillows cannot be fixed so they are not good choices. In addition, after I searched the websites related, I knew that sleep on your side could ease you symptom so that I want to invent stegosaurus vest to stop snoring by changing your sleeping posture.

3. First version:
The wedge pillow for stopping snoring Because we bought a new television, I got a large Styrofoam block from the carton, and then I used a Styrofoam cutter to shape it into wedge; next I put the wedge Styrofoam between two tank tops of my father's. My father wore it to sleep for testing the effect and we found the wedge absolutely effect on his snore. But the Styrofoam wedge is too hard and is not easy to fix it on his back.
Advantages: low cost, easy to get, absolutely ease the snoring.
Disadvantage: the user feels uncomfortable because Styrofoam wedge is too hard; it is easy to slide out the tank tops if the wedge is not fixed well.

4. Correct and realize the final version- a stegosaurus vest.
(1). Because the disadvantages above-mentioned, I crumb the stegosaurus to make sure that it would not too hard. And put those into a wedge cloth bag.
(2). After tested, the cloth bag still moved when you sleep, so I sew the bag (small Styrofoam granules in it) on the tank top. The vest cannot move anymore and it becomes easier to wear or take it off.
(3). I find the original cloth bag that is not easy to clean because the Styrofoam, so I sew another cloth bag and put the original wedge cloth bag in. The most important is that I make a side opening for taking out the cloth bag, making the vest easy to clean.