Over the space of several months, roughly a dozen youngsters will go to bed each night with sensors attached to their pajama tops and bottoms.
They will be taking part in research from this autumn to find ways to prevent bed-wetting, which afflicts an estimated 500,000 Japanese children aged 6 or over.
Researchers at Fujitsu Ltd. and Nagoya University will monitor the elementary school pupils as they sleep and study correlations between sensor readings and the timing of incontinence.
A heart rate meter will be fitted to test subjects to detect changes in the autonomic nervous system that stimulate urination.
Shigeo Yoshida, an associate professor at Nagoya University’s medical department, also believes that as children move their waists restlessly, sensory temperature falls and atmospheric pressure rises before they wet the bed.
An acceleration sensor will monitor body movements, while two additional sensors will measure sensory temperature and atmospheric pressure.
Doctors have not established methods to cure nocturnal enuresis, and few medical institutions can provide adequate treatment.
Yoshida and other researchers hope to develop systems to wake children or their parents with an alarm or other means before bed-wetting occurs.
"If we can get positive results, we plan to apply them to assist elderly people as well," Yoshida said.
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