From reactive to proactive: machine learning models for continuous positive airway pressure adjustments using heart rate variability and oximetry-related parameters
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objective
Current adjustments of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) may expose patients to risks of respiratory episodes or oxygen desaturation. Therefore, this study developed machine learning models using leading indicators, such as heart rate variability (HRV) and oximetry-related metrics, to proactively predict optimal adjustment timings.
Methods
CPAP titration data were first collected from a sleep center in northern Taiwan. Subsequently, Continuous HRV and oximetry-related metrics were retrieved (60-s window with 1-s stride) and then labeled based on the presence of pressure adjustments. The dataset, comprising seven HRV and two oximetry-related parameters, was independently divided into training/validation (80%) and test (20%) datasets based on patient information. Five cross-sectional and two time-series models were established. The model with the highest accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) in the training/validation dataset was applied to the test dataset to investigate feature importance through permutation analysis.
Results
A dataset comprising 14,629 time-series cases from 374 patients undergoing CPAP therapy was obtained. The InceptionTime model outperformed others during the training/validation phase with accuracies of 78.27% and AUROC of 78.07%, and achieved 80.92% accuracy and 76.52% AUROC in the test phase. Feature importance analysis identified peripheral arterial oxygen saturation, its standard deviation over a 60-s window, and normalized power in the very-low-frequency band of HRV as the most impactful predictors.
Conclusions
The findings demonstrated the feasibility of incorporating HRV and oximetry-related metrics, as leading indicators, to proactively predict CPAP adjustment timings. Further research should consider integrating these metrics to improve CPAP therapy.
Current adjustments of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) may expose patients to risks of respiratory episodes or oxygen desaturation. Therefore, this study developed machine learning models using leading indicators, such as heart rate variability (HRV) and oximetry-related metrics, to proactively predict optimal adjustment timings.
Methods
CPAP titration data were first collected from a sleep center in northern Taiwan. Subsequently, Continuous HRV and oximetry-related metrics were retrieved (60-s window with 1-s stride) and then labeled based on the presence of pressure adjustments. The dataset, comprising seven HRV and two oximetry-related parameters, was independently divided into training/validation (80%) and test (20%) datasets based on patient information. Five cross-sectional and two time-series models were established. The model with the highest accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) in the training/validation dataset was applied to the test dataset to investigate feature importance through permutation analysis.
Results
A dataset comprising 14,629 time-series cases from 374 patients undergoing CPAP therapy was obtained. The InceptionTime model outperformed others during the training/validation phase with accuracies of 78.27% and AUROC of 78.07%, and achieved 80.92% accuracy and 76.52% AUROC in the test phase. Feature importance analysis identified peripheral arterial oxygen saturation, its standard deviation over a 60-s window, and normalized power in the very-low-frequency band of HRV as the most impactful predictors.
Conclusions
The findings demonstrated the feasibility of incorporating HRV and oximetry-related metrics, as leading indicators, to proactively predict CPAP adjustment timings. Further research should consider integrating these metrics to improve CPAP therapy.
Date Issued
2025-04-01
Date Acceptance
2025-04-16
Citation
Digital Health, 2025, 11
ISSN
2055-2076
Publisher
SAGE Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Digital Health
Volume
11
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
License URL
Identifier
10.1177/20552076251339273
Subjects
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP)
heart rate variability (HRV)
oximetry-related metric
InceptionTime
pressure adjustment timings
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-04-28