AI offers a better way to diagnose sleep disorders

A person's legs hang over the side of their bed

An artificial intelligence algorithm can improve diagnoses, treatments, and our overall understanding of sleep disorders, researchers report.

“The algorithm is extraordinarily precise. We completed various tests in which its performance rivaled that of the best doctors in the field, worldwide,” says Mathias Perslev, a PhD in the computer science department at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the study in the journal npj Digital Medicine.

Today’s sleep disorder examinations typically begin with admittance to a sleep clinic. Here, a person’s night sleep is monitored using various measuring instruments. A specialist in sleep disorders then reviews the 7-8 hours of measurements from the patient’s overnight sleep.

The doctor manually divides these 7-8 hours of sleep into 30-second intervals, all of which must be categorized into different sleep phases, such as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, light sleep, deep sleep, etc. It is a time-consuming job that the algorithm can perform in seconds.


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

“This project has allowed us to prove that these measurements can be very safely made using machine learning—which has great significance,” says Poul Jennum, professor of neurophysiology and head of the Danish Center for Sleep Medicine. “By saving many hours of work, many more patients can be assessed and diagnosed effectively.”

In the capital region of Denmark alone, more than 4,000 polysomnography tests—known as PSG or sleep studies—are conducted annually on patients with sleep apnea and more complicated sleeping disorders.

It takes 1.5-3 hours for a doctor to analyze a PSG study. Thus, deploying the new algorithm could free up between 6,000 and 12,000 medical hours in the capital region of Denmark alone.

By collecting data from a variety of sources, the researchers behind the algorithm have been able to ensure optimal functionality. In all, 20,000 nights of sleep from the United States and a host of European countries have been collected and used to train the algorithm.

“We have collected sleep data from across continents, sleep clinics, and patient groups. The fact that the algorithm works well under such diverse conditions is a breakthrough,” explain Perslev and Christian Igel, who led the project on the computer science side. “Achieving this kind of generalization is one of the greatest challenges in medical data analysis.”

The researchers hope that the algorithm will serve to help doctors and researchers around the world to learn more about sleep disorders in the future.

The sleep analysis software is freely available at sleep.ai.ku.dk and can be used by anyone, anywhere—including places where there isn’t a sleep clinic around the corner.

“Just a few measurements taken by common clinical instruments are required for this algorithm. So, use of this software could be particularly relevant in developing countries where one may not have access to the latest equipment or an expert,” Perslev says.

The researchers are now working with Danish physicians to get the software and algorithm approved for clinical use.

Source: University of Copenhagen

About The Author

Michael Skov Jensen-Copenhagen

books_health

This article orginally appeared on Futurity

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Tuesday, 25 July 2023 16:09

Volunteering in late life may be more than just a noble act of giving back to the community; it could be a critical factor in safeguarding the brain against cognitive decline and dementia.

Monday, 17 May 2021 08:55

Maybe you’re trying to eat healthier these days, aiming to get enough of the good stuff and limit the less-good stuff. You’re paying attention to things like fiber and fat and vitamins… and...

Tuesday, 04 May 2021 08:32

Cognitive motor training helps in the fight against Alzheimer’s and dementia, according to new research.

Thursday, 13 May 2021 08:34

Iron deficiency is a common nutritional disorder worldwide, and pre-menopausal women are most at risk of being diagnosed with it.

Tuesday, 27 April 2021 08:56

Peas, lentils, chickpeas, beans and peanuts: if it comes in a pod then chances are it’s a legume. These unassuming food crops have a special ability that makes them fairly unique in the plant...

Wednesday, 19 May 2021 09:40

To “cry poor mouth” is an expression used to habitually complain about a lack of money. A literal poor mouth, however, represents one of the most widespread global diseases: tooth decay.

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.