Software Tool Development and Application Focusing in EDF Signal Readings and Polysomnography

Abstract

The EDF+ (European Data Format Plus) is a flexible and open source data format created in order to store and exchange biomedical signals. It is known worldwide and used by a large variety of specialists in the area. EDF+ signals have been subjected to many researches of clinical interest amongst diagnosing and for treatment of diseases related to sleeping disorders. Nevertheless, more complete and user-friendly tools, which use these signals, are yet too few in the market. This paper presents a new tool developed in order to read and analyze EDF+ signals, focusing in the area of sleep disorders. It includes several features, such as organizing signal channels through previous montage customizations, sleep stage bars and graphics for analyzing the quality of sleep (hypnograms). It provides easiness in the whole process of interpretation and scoring of sleep events in polysomnography exams. The software development used the C++ language, due to its great versatility and efficiency, using Visual Studio Community 2013 ? as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Moreover, it implements many Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques, for instance, its own set of digital filters. This paper presents an application of Polysomnography analysis software and suggests a modification on the way to interpret the EDF+ standard and its usage.