Heart rate response analysis in Parkinson's disease patients with sleep apnea

Abstract

We analyzed the heart rate (autonomic nervous system) response to sleep apnea events. We compared the response between sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and SAS patients without PD. The increasing amplitude was significantly smaller in SAS patients with PD comparing with that in the case of SAS patients without PD. The increasing latency was significantly longer in SAS patients with PD compared with that in the case of SAS patients without PD. We applied logistic discriminant analysis using the heart rate response indices to discriminate the two patient groups. The result showed relatively high accuracy for discrimination. These results imply that autonomic nervous system does not response rapidly and efficiently to sleep apnea events in PD patients due to the sympathetic degeneration.