Statistical analysis of heart rate variability during abnormal respiratory events in obstructive sleep apnea patients

Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a disease that occurs due to respiratory arrest in sleep. The diagnosis of the disease is made with the polysomnography device, which is the gold standard method of diagnosis. Diagnosis is performed by sleep staging and respiratory scoring steps. Respiratory scoring is performed with at least four signals. Technical knowledge is required to connect the electrodes. Moreover, the electrodes are so disturbing that it will delay the patient's sleeping time. Alternative systems for polysomnography devices are needed to solve these problems. In the study, Heart Rate Variable (HRV) derived from the photoplethysmographic signal was proposed for respiratory scoring. For the study, 15 features were extracted from HRV. Mann-Whitney U Test was used to determine whether the extracted features were distinguishing for apnea and control groups. According to the results, p <; 0.05 belongs to properties 1-9 and 13-15, and these properties were found to be distinctive for the groups. According to the results of the study, respiratory scoring can be performed more practically by using HRV.