Length of Individual Apnea Events Is Increased by Supine Position and Modulated by Severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Figure 3

(a) Positional sleeping time adjusted distributions of the depths of individual desaturation events in supine and nonsupine positions in different OSA severity categories and (b) distributions in nonsupine and supine positions as a function of OSA severity. In mild and severe OSA categories the median depths of the desaturation events are greater in the supine position than in the nonsupine position. Based on mixed model analysis, the differences are statistically significant in all OSA severity categories excluding normal category.

(a)

(b)