Physiological measurement
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Physiological measurement · Apr 2016
Apnea-hypopnea index estimation using quantitative analysis of sleep macrostructure.
Obstructive sleep apnea, characterized by recurrent cessation or substantial reduction in breathing during sleep, is a prevalent and serious medical condition. Although a significant relationship between obstructive sleep apnea and sleep macrostructure has been revealed in several studies, useful applications of this relationship have been limited. The aim of this study was to suggest a novel approach using quantitative analysis of sleep macrostructure to estimate the apnea-hypopnea index, which is commonly used to assess obstructive sleep apnea. ⋯ Between the apnea-hypopnea index estimates and the reference values reported from polysomnography, a root mean square error of 7.30 events h(-1) was obtained in the validation set. At an apnea-hypopnea index cut-off of ⩾30 events h(-1), the obstructive sleep apnea diagnostic performance was provided with a sensitivity of 90.0%, a specificity of 93.5%, and an accuracy of 92.4% by our method. The developed apnea-hypopnea index estimation model has the potential to be utilized in circumstances in which it is not possible to acquire or analyze respiration signal but it is possible to obtain information on sleep macrostructure.
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Physiological measurement · Jan 2016
Effect of heat-induced pain stimuli on pulse transit time and pulse wave amplitude in healthy volunteers.
Pain is commonly assessed subjectively by interpretations of patient behaviour and/or reports from patients. When this is impossible the availability of a quantitative objective pain assessment tool based on objective physiological parameters would greatly benefit clinical practice and research beside the standard self-report tests. Vasoconstriction is one of the physiological responses to pain. ⋯ The time-interval of 20s was too short to allow PTT and PWA to return to baseline values and should exceed 40s in future studies. Heat-induced pain causes a decrease of PTT and PWA. Consequently, it is expected that, in the future, PTT and PWA may be applied as objective indicators of pain, either beside the standard self-report test, or when self-report testing is impossible.
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Physiological measurement · Dec 2015
Permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity measure of electroencephalogram in GABAergic anaesthetics.
Monitoring the brain state in anaesthesia is crucial for clinical doctors. In this study, we propose a novel nonlinear method, the permutation Lempel-Ziv complexity (PLZC) index, which describes the complexity in the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal to quantify the effect of GABAergic anaesthetics on brain activities. We applied the PLZC to two EEG data sets that were recorded under sevoflurane and propofol anaesthesia. ⋯ PLZC based on electroencephalogram signals can be used as a new index to characterize the depth of anaesthesia. This index outperformed LZC, PE, CPEI, RE, SE, and BIS or SFS in tracking drug concentration changes during GABAergic anaesthetics. PLZC is a potentially superior method for applications in intra-operative monitoring.
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Physiological measurement · Oct 2015
Estimation of instantaneous venous blood saturation using the photoplethysmograph waveform.
Non-invasive estimation of regional venous saturation (SxvO2) using a conventional pulse oximeter could provide a means of obtaining clinically relevant information. This study was carried out in order to investigate the hypothesis that SxvO2 could be estimated by utilising the modulations created by positive pressure ventilation in the photoplethysmograph (PPG) signals. The modulations caused by the mechanical ventilator were extracted from oesophageal PPG signals obtained from 12 patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery. ⋯ These components were then used to estimate instantaneous arterial blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) and SxvO2 by utilising time-frequency analysis technique of smoothed-pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution (SPWVD). The results showed that there was no significant difference in the traditionally-derived (time-domain) arterial saturation and the instantaneous arterial saturation. However, the instantaneous venous saturation was found to be significantly lower than the estimated time-domain and instantaneous arterial saturation (P = < 0.001, n = 12).
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Physiological measurement · Oct 2015
A comb filter based signal processing method to effectively reduce motion artifacts from photoplethysmographic signals.
A photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal can provide very useful information about a subject's cardiovascular status. Motion artifacts (MAs), which usually deteriorate the waveform of a PPG signal, severely obstruct its applications in the clinical diagnosis and healthcare area. To reduce the MAs from a PPG signal, in the present study we present a comb filter based signal processing method. ⋯ Results show that the proposed method can effectively restore the PPG signals from the MA corrupted signals. Also, the accuracy of blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), calculated from red and infrared PPG signals, was significantly improved after the MA reduction by the proposed method. Our study demonstrates that the comb filter can effectively reduce the MAs from a PPG signal provided that the PPG signal period is obtained.