THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SNORING AT PHARYNGEAL ANATOMY IN NATURAL SLEEP: SNORING DURATION

The present study utilized audio recordings of snoring during natural sleep to analyze characteristics related to the snoring duration at the soft palate, epiglottis, and tongue base. 10 subjects were recruited for the study, with an average age of 23.7 years. These audio tiles were then used to analyze the characteristics of snoring duration at the soft palate, epiglottis, and tongue base responsible for sound generation. Findings indicated that snoring duration was 3.7 seconds at the soft palate, 2.2 seconds at the epiglottis and 1.29 seconds at the tongue. Since the soft palate is the softest structure of the three, snoring sound by vibration was most easily induced at this structure, leading to the longest snoring duration. This was followed by the epiglottis and the tongue base respectively. Of the 10 subjects, 6 had BMI in the overweight range, and snoring durations for these individuals were seen to be lengthened by 0.13 seconds, with the tongue base snoring duration lengthened by 0.11 seconds but unchanged for the epiglottis. Prior studies from this laboratory have established a non-invasive system for measuring snoring. This can be used to analyze the sound frequency, amplitude and duration of snoring. Snoring duration was found to be the longest at the soft palate, followed by the epiglottis and tongue base in the present investigation. Clinically, this finding has implications in snoring assessments prior to uvula-palato-pharyngoplasty procedures. Snoring duration may also be used as a parameter in post-operative monitoring.