Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Department of Automatic Control (ESAII), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona Tech (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Oct 29;21(21):7182. doi: 10.3390/s21217182.
Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) have an increased risk of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), which can lead to serious comorbidities and impact patients' recovery and quality of life. However, sleep tests are rarely performed on SCI patients, given their multiple health needs and the cost and complexity of diagnostic equipment. The objective of this study was to use a novel smartphone system as a simple non-invasive tool to monitor SDB in SCI patients. We recorded pulse oximetry, acoustic, and accelerometer data using a smartphone during overnight tests in 19 SCI patients and 19 able-bodied controls. Then, we analyzed these signals with automatic algorithms to detect desaturation, apnea, and hypopnea events and monitor sleep position. The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) was significantly higher in SCI patients than controls (25 ± 15 vs. 9 ± 7, < 0.001). We found that 63% of SCI patients had moderate-to-severe SDB (AHI ≥ 15) in contrast to 21% of control subjects. Most SCI patients slept predominantly in supine position, but an increased occurrence of events in supine position was only observed for eight patients. This study highlights the problem of SDB in SCI and provides simple cost-effective sleep monitoring tools to facilitate the detection, understanding, and management of SDB in SCI patients.
脊髓损伤 (SCI) 患者存在睡眠呼吸紊乱 (SDB) 的风险增加，这可能导致严重的合并症，并影响患者的康复和生活质量。然而，由于 SCI 患者有多种健康需求，且诊断设备的成本和复杂性较高，因此很少对其进行睡眠测试。本研究的目的是使用新型智能手机系统作为一种简单的非侵入性工具来监测 SCI 患者的 SDB。我们在 19 名 SCI 患者和 19 名健康对照者的夜间测试中使用智能手机记录了脉搏血氧饱和度、声音和加速度计数据。然后，我们使用自动算法分析这些信号，以检测血氧饱和度降低、呼吸暂停和低通气事件，并监测睡眠姿势。SCI 患者的呼吸暂停低通气指数 (AHI) 明显高于对照组 (25 ± 15 比 9 ± 7, < 0.001)。我们发现，63%的 SCI 患者存在中重度 SDB (AHI≥15)，而对照组为 21%。大多数 SCI 患者主要以仰卧位睡眠，但只有 8 名患者仰卧位事件发生增加。本研究强调了 SCI 中 SDB 的问题，并提供了简单且具有成本效益的睡眠监测工具，以促进 SCI 患者中 SDB 的检测、理解和管理。
