Envelope analysis of the airflow signal to improve polysomnographic assessment of sleep disordered breathing

Abstract

Study Objectives: Given the detailed respiratory waveform signal provided by the nasal cannula in polysomnographic (PSG) studies, to quantify sleep breathing disturbances by extracting a continuous variable based on the coefficient of variation of the envelope of that signal. Design: Application of an algorithm for envelope analysis to standard nasal cannula signal from actual polysomnographic studies. Setting: PSG recordings from a sleep disorders center were analyzed by an algorithm developed on the Igor scientific data analysis software. Patients or Participants: Recordings representative of different degrees of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) severity or illustrative of the covariation between breathing and particularly relevant factors and variables. Interventions: The method calculated the coefficient of variation of the envelope for each 30-second epoch. The normalized version of that coefficient was defined as the respiratory disturbance variable (RDV). The method outcome was