Prognosis of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy via Decomposed Digital Volume Pulse from the Fingertip

Hai-Cheng Wei; Wen-Rui Hu; Na Ta; Ming-Xia Xiao; Xiao-Jing Tang; Hsien-Tsai Wu

doi:10.3390/e22070754

Prognosis of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy via Decomposed Digital Volume Pulse from the Fingertip

Entropy (Basel). 2020 Jul 9;22(7):754. doi: 10.3390/e22070754.

Authors

Hai-Cheng Wei^{1

2

3}, Wen-Rui Hu³, Na Ta³, Ming-Xia Xiao^{2

3}, Xiao-Jing Tang⁴, Hsien-Tsai Wu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Basic Experimental Teaching & Engineering Training Center, North Minzu University, No. 204 North Wenchang Street, Yinchuan, Ningxia 750021, China.
² Laboratory of Intelligent Information and Big Data Processing of NingXia Province, North Minzu University, No. 204 North Wenchang Street, Yinchuan, Ningxia 750021, China.
³ School of Electrical and Information Engineering, North Minzu University, No. 204 North Wenchang Street, Yinchuan, Ningxia 750021, China.
⁴ School of Science, Ningxia Medical University, No. 1160 Shengli Street, Ningxia 750004, China.
⁵ Department of Electrical Engineering, Dong Hwa University, No. 1, Sec. 2, Da Hsueh Rd., Shoufeng, Hualien 97401, Taiwan.

Abstract

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a very common neurological disorder in diabetic patients. This study presents a new percussion-based index for predicting DPN by decomposing digital volume pulse (DVP) signals from the fingertip. In this study, 130 subjects (50 individuals 44 to 89 years of age without diabetes and 80 patients 37 to 86 years of age with type 2 diabetes) were enrolled. After baseline measurement and blood tests, 25 diabetic patients developed DPN within the following five years. After removing high-frequency noise in the original DVP signals, the decomposed DVP signals were used for percussion entropy index (PEI_DVP) computation. Effects of risk factors on the incidence of DPN in diabetic patients within five years of follow-up were tested using binary logistic regression analysis, controlling for age, waist circumference, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and the new index. Multivariate analysis showed that patients who did not develop DPN in the five-year period had higher PEI_DVP values than those with DPN, as determined by logistic regression model (PEI_DVP: odds ratio 0.913, 95% CI 0.850 to 0.980). This study shows that PEI_DVP can be a major protective factor in relation to the studied binary outcome (i.e., DPN or not in diabetic patients five years after baseline measurement).

Keywords: baroreflex sensitivity (BRS); diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN); digital volume pulse (DVP); ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD); percussion entropy index; photoplethysmography (PPG).