title: Deterministic properties of apnoeas in an abdominal breathing signal.
abstract: The paper describes a general set of properties that represent most apnoeas as found in an abdominal breathing signal. An apnoea is a pause in breathing during sleep, and only central apnoeas in infants are considered. Human experts are consulted to determine what properties of the signal they use to recognise apnoeas. A set of deterministic, or shape, properties is developed to represent expert opinion. An apnoea is modelled as a flat region with four properties: flatness, duration, thinness and smoothness. Mathematical descriptions of each property are formulated that discriminate between apnoea and non-apnoea events, and each description is tested for discrimination and independence. The average power of discrimination is 24% +/- 16% and the average correlation coefficient is 0.28 +/- 0.16. Applications include scoring apnoeas for sleep studies and developing standard definitions of apnoeas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Macey
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Ford
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001049:Apnea / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D012119:Respiration; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes / Q000175:diagnosis; D013398:Sudden Infant Death / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014160:Transducers, Pressure