Thoraco-abdominal asynchrony in children during quiet sleep using Hilbert transform

Area of Science:

• Respiratory Physiology
• Sleep Medicine
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Thoraco-abdominal asynchrony (TAA) can indicate respiratory issues.
• Quantifying TAA during sleep is crucial for understanding breathing patterns.
• Existing methods may lack precision or ease of use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel Hilbert transform-based technique for quantifying TAA.
• To investigate the influence of sleep stages and positions on TAA in healthy children.
• To validate the Hilbert transform as a tool for respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) signal analysis.

Main Methods:

• Utilized respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) signals during overnight polysomnography (PSG).
• Applied Hilbert transform to calculate phase shift between ribcage (RC) and abdominal (AB) signals.
• Analyzed 30-second epochs from 40 healthy children across different sleep stages and positions (supine, lateral).

Main Results:

• A statistically significant effect of sleep position on TAA was observed in all non-REM sleep stages.
• The Hilbert transform method effectively quantified TAA from RIP data.
• Breathing patterns showed variations related to sleep position.

Conclusions:

• The Hilbert transform offers a straightforward and effective method for TAA quantification.
• Sleep position is a significant factor influencing thoraco-abdominal coordination in children during sleep.
• This technique can aid in the analysis of respiratory patterns during sleep studies.