Computational aero-vibro-acoustics of snoring with impact on obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most wide-spread obstructive sleep disorder. Snoring is an accompanying effect of sleep-disordered breathing. Conservative estimates of snoring as a prevalent disorder suggest that it affects 20-40% of the general population.

Although there is a strong correlation between obstructive sleep disorders and snoring, not all snorers are automatically OSA patients.

Due to the multifactorial complexity of OSA, there is limited knowledge on relevant physics associated with the complex interplay and coupling between the intermittent fluid flow, the upper respiratory tract, and the generated acoustics.

The project promotes basic research by aiming to understand the intermittent flow in flexible airways, the pharyngeal airway dynamics, the fluid-structure interaction process and the associated noise generation. A multi-physics computational approach is employed.

To successfully handle the cross-disciplinary research proposed, the project benefits of medical faculty specialized in OSA diagnosis and treatment and medical imaging experts.

Subject specific geometries (corresponding to healthy and OSA patients) are carefully assessed by resolving the fluid-structure interaction processes and sound generation with relevance to snoring.

This is necessary to understand the sound production mechanisms in the pharyngeal airway; to generate the know-how to use this information for diagnosis, e.g., to separate patients with OSA from those with only snoring.