Somnolink: Using AI to combat nocturnal breathing interruptions

Source: www.gesundheitsforschung-bmftr.de

Recurring breathing interruptions prevent many people from getting a good night's sleep. If left untreated, they can also cause serious illnesses. IT solutions developed as part of the Medical Informatics Initiative are designed to improve diagnosis and treatment.

Short pauses in breathing during sleep, which often go unnoticed but occur repeatedly, can be dangerous: Those who suffer from them have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, or even dementia. If such breathing interruptions occur more than five times an hour and are accompanied by daytime sleepiness or high blood pressure, for example, doctors refer to this as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a chronic condition that requires treatment.

In Germany alone, around 26 million people are affected by apnea, which does not always require treatment, but often goes undiagnosed or is diagnosed late. Researchers in the Somnolink joint project of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) want to help these people and improve the diagnosis and treatment of the condition with data analyses based on artificial intelligence – and thus prevent the long-term consequences of OSA in good time. 

Data analysis reveals more about the causes and risks of the disease

“To better understand the disease and its causes, we analyze health data that is routinely collected during hospital stays,” explains Dagmar Krefting, professor at Göttingen University Medical Center and project coordinator at Somnolink. Clinical treatment data such as blood pressure, heart rate, or blood oxygen saturation can indicate sleep apnea requiring treatment and the associated risks. “Improved diagnostics could help female patients in particular, as they suffer from morning headaches or depression more often than male patients – symptoms and secondary diseases whose connection to nocturnal breathing interruptions is often overlooked,” says Prof. Krefting.

Close cooperation enables tailored therapy

The best possible treatment of the disease requires the commitment of many people involved. It is important that all doctors involved share their information and evaluate it together: for example, data from the hospital, respiratory measurements in the home sleeping environment, and results from the sleep laboratory. Equally important are the assessments of those affected regarding the restfulness of their sleep and their quality of life. Only the analysis of all this information provides an overall picture of the disease, enabling those involved to tailor the treatment to the individual.

At Somnolink, sleep medicine specialists and medical IT specialists work together on analysis methods and IT solutions based on artificial intelligence. Patients can also participate in deciding on research questions, contribute to the planning of studies, and evaluate the results together with the researchers. The partners in the consortium are the university hospitals in Göttingen, Essen, Regensburg, Mannheim, and Dresden, the Charité in Berlin, the Society for Scientific Data Processing in Göttingen, and the Evangelisches Krankenhaus Göttingen-Weende.

For further details and background information on the initiative, please visit the website: www.gesundheitsforschung-bmftr.de: Somnolink: Mit KI gegen nächtliche Atemaussetzer