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Therefore,
If a patient sleeps for 7 hours and experiences 27 desaturation events, the equation looks like this:
The desaturation index is important because oxygen desaturation is detrimental to a patient's health in many ways other than sleep quality. Oxygen is critical to the proper function of all the bodily systems and any significant drop in blood oxygen has consequences that have short and long term effects. Decreased brain function, heart stress, organ damage, circulatory damage..are all examples of hypoxia (low oxygen levels). This is important to sleep apnea sufferers as any apnea-hypopnea event will likely see a coinciding desaturation event. The severity of the desaturation event is increased as the duration of the apnea-hypopnea event increases. Chronic desaturation can lead to disease, organ failure and death.
'''Periodic Limb Movement of Sleep Index'''
Periodic Limb Movement of Sleep (PLMs) is characterized as the movement of the legs during sleep. Generally, only the legs are monitored however the arms may be affected as well. This limb movement results in in decreased sleep quality and insomnia.
To be characterized as a PLMs event, the limb movement is recorded as an EEG signal from the leg muscle contraction with a duration greater than 0.5 seconds and less than 5 seconds, and there must be 4 marked contractions within a 90 second period. So, if a person moves their leg for at least half a second and no more than 5 seconds, 4 times in 90 seconds, they will have had a PLMs event.
Peridic Limb Movement Index (PLMI) is the sum of PLMs events divided by the number of hours of sleep.
Therefore:
PLMI = # of PLMs events ÷ # of hours of sleep
If a patient sleeps for 9 hours and experiences 37 PLMs events, the equation will look like this:
PLMI = 37 PLMs events ÷ 9 hours of sleep
PLMI = 4.11
PLMs is important to sleep apnea sufferers because PLMs is sometimes a side effect of sleep apnea and upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS). Many diagnosis of PLMs has been made with the underlying cause being mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea or UARS. In severe cases of obstructive sleep apnea, the PLMs is discovered only after treatment. Generally, PLMs is greatly improved with CPAP treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.
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