After seeing his dad deal with night terrors for years, Tyler Skluzacek, who was in the sixth grade when his dad was first deployed but is now a college student, has come up with a simple, yet seemingly effective way to prevent them.
Tyler said he has a personal connection to the problems associated with PTSD. After spending a year in Iraq, Tyler said his father returned “a little bit different.” It was something he noticed in his dad’s Army buddies as well. Then, he noticed the night terrors.
“At 3:00 in the morning, all of a sudden I’m startled awake,” Tyler’s dad, Patrick, explained.
But in September, Tyler and some other students entered a computer contest. In a day and a half, they created the code for an app called myBivy, which tracks the user’s heart rate and movements.
“After a couple weeks of tracking the soldier we can find the exact symptoms, the exact symptoms of the onset of the panic attack, and try to use the watch or use the android phone to disrupt that or take them out of the deep sleep but keep them asleep,” Tyler explained.
Tyler’s team won the contest – and $1,500 – and their next goal is simple: “My team and I kind of have a saying right now that my team and I won’t sleep until the veterans can,” Tyler said.
Tyler’s team is currently raising money to start clinical trials, which they hope will begin to take place next spring.
[ First Coast News ]
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