Development of a support vector machine learning and smart phone Internet of Things-based architecture for real-time sleep apnea diagnosis

Bin Ma; Zhaolong Wu; Shengyu Li; Ryan Benton; Dongqi Li; Yulong Huang; Mohan Vamsi Kasukurthi; Jingwei Lin; Glen M Borchert; Shaobo Tan; Gang Li; Meihong Yang; Jingshan Huang

doi:10.1186/s12911-020-01329-1

Development of a support vector machine learning and smart phone Internet of Things-based architecture for real-time sleep apnea diagnosis

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2020 Dec 15;20(Suppl 14):298. doi: 10.1186/s12911-020-01329-1.

Authors

Bin Ma¹, Zhaolong Wu¹, Shengyu Li², Ryan Benton², Dongqi Li², Yulong Huang³, Mohan Vamsi Kasukurthi², Jingwei Lin⁴, Glen M Borchert⁵, Shaobo Tan², Gang Li¹, Meihong Yang⁶, Jingshan Huang^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Science), Jinan, China.
² School of Computing, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA.
³ College of Allied Health Professions, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36608, USA.
⁴ Ocean School, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China.
⁵ College of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA.
⁶ Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Science), Jinan, China. yangmh@sdas.org.
⁷ School of Computing, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA. huang@southalabama.edu.
⁸ College of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA. huang@southalabama.edu.

Abstract

Background: The breathing disorder obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) only occurs while asleep. While polysomnography (PSG) represents the premiere standard for diagnosing OSAS, it is quite costly, complicated to use, and carries a significant delay between testing and diagnosis.

Methods: This work describes a novel architecture and algorithm designed to efficiently diagnose OSAS via the use of smart phones. In our algorithm, features are extracted from the data, specifically blood oxygen saturation as represented by SpO2. These features are used by a support vector machine (SVM) based strategy to create a classification model. The resultant SVM classification model can then be employed to diagnose OSAS. To allow remote diagnosis, we have combined a simple monitoring system with our algorithm. The system allows physiological data to be obtained from a smart phone, the data to be uploaded to the cloud for processing, and finally population of a diagnostic report sent back to the smart phone in real-time.

Results: Our initial evaluation of this algorithm utilizing actual patient data finds its sensitivity, accuracy, and specificity to be 87.6%, 90.2%, and 94.1%, respectively.

Discussion: Our architecture can monitor human physiological readings in real time and give early warning of abnormal physiological parameters. Moreover, after our evaluation, we find 5G technology offers higher bandwidth with lower delays ensuring more effective monitoring. In addition, we evaluate our algorithm utilizing real-world data; the proposed approach has high accuracy, sensitivity, and specific, demonstrating that our approach is very promising.

Conclusions: Experimental results on the apnea data in University College Dublin (UCD) Database have proven the efficiency and effectiveness of our methodology. This work is a pilot project and still under development. There is no clinical validation and no support. In addition, the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture enables real-time monitoring of human physiological parameters, combined with diagnostic algorithms to provide early warning of abnormal data.

Keywords: Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome; Sleep apnea; SpO2; Support vector machine.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Humans
Internet of Things*
Pilot Projects
Sleep Apnea Syndromes*
Smartphone
Support Vector Machine