Determination of Signs of Sleep Apnea Using Machine Learning Methods in Combination with Reducing the Dimensionality of Heart Rate Variability Features

Abstract

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is a clinically significant disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of upper airway obstruction, manifesting as either apnea or hypopnea, predominantly occurring at the pharyngeal level. Despite the preservation of respiratory muscle function during these episodes, OSAS poses considerable health risks, including cardiovascular complications and cognitive impairment. In recent years, a growing body of literature has explored novel methodologies to discern and diagnose OSAS, with a particular focus on cardiac activity analysis through Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This study contributes to the existing literature by conducting a comprehensive HRV analysis aimed at identifying indicative patterns of sleep apnea. The analysis incorporates diverse parameters within both time and frequency domains, facilitating a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between cardiac dynamics and respiratory disruptions during sleep. In an effort to enhance the interpretability of the data, various scaling and dimensionality reduction techniques, such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP), were applied. The dataset utilized in this investigation comprises records from 70 patients, sourced from the Apnea-ECG Database on the Physionet platform. To discern the optimal classification model, several machine learning algorithms were employed after the dimensionality reduction, including k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN), logistic regression, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Gradient Boosting. Intriguingly, the results demonstrate a remarkable 100% accuracy across all classifiers when utilizing the UMAP dimensionality reduction method. A distinctive feature of the proposed methodology lies in its amalgamation of machine learning techniques with HRV parameters post-dimensionality reduction. This approach not only enhances the interpretability of the complex physiological data but also underscores the potential applicability of the developed model in real-world scenarios for the detection of OSAS. The robustness of the proposed approach, as evidenced by its high accuracy rates, positions it as a promising tool for advancing diagnostic capabilities in the realm of sleep medicine. Future research endeavors may further refine and validate this methodology, paving the way for its integration into clinical practice and contributing to the broader landscape of sleep disorder diagnostics.