A Novel Technique to Diagnose Sleep Apnea in Suspected Patients Using Their ECG Data

Sleep Apnea is a breathing disorder that occurs while the patient is sleeping. Traditionally, Polysomnography is used to diagnose it. However, it is quite inconvenient and expensive. Because of the troublesome diagnosis, this ailment often remained undiagnosed. This paper aims at the development of such a method that provides an easy diagnostic solution to the doctors. Electrocardiogram (ECG) is one of the most common tests done at the hospitals. In this paper, we aim to develop a method which deploys ECG data to diagnose the sleep ailment, Apnea. A technique deploying wavelet packet transform on RR interval of ECG has been presented. Probability density functions of data, both when Apnea is present and when it is not, are obtained by constructing histograms of decision variable for each signal segment. From the overlapping PDFs of the normal and abnormal cases, a threshold is then derived. This helped in segregating the Apnea cases from normal cases. The stated method provided a 100% accuracy in diagnosing Sleep Apnea.