Looking for articles on nasal air flow restrictions and CPAP

I am looking for articles on nasal air flow restrictions and CPAP therapy.

I have been looking but not finding published articles.

This is my analysis.

dP = delta Pressure

F = flow

R = equals resistance in a channel to flow.

The basic equation is dP = F*R

This is not strictly true since dP goes up as non-linear response to flow, usually to the Square, but for this technical analysis it will be good enought.

So if you had a nasal constriction, that is to say R is large, using the equation above as R -->, dP --> that is as R goes up dP goes up.

Lets say that during inhaling at a normal rate the dP necessary was 2 cm-H2O and your CPAP pressure was 10 cm-H2).

This would mean that you would get essentially 8 cm-H2O when inhaling and to exhale you would need 12 cm-H2O. Essentially your therapeutic pressure would be lowered and you would have negative relief for breathing.

When they do the sleep testing you have a face mask which I think wouldn't pick up on nasal restrictions.

Of course if you had head cold, allergenic swelling of nasal tissues, your R value might go up and the effective therapeutic pressure would go down.

I think I once read in their forum that a person used a face mask because of nasal restrictions.

Another feature of this, is that if you were sleeping and suddenly inhaled for some reason, you might get downward spike of pressure.

Since the air flow formula is dP - R*F, and if you did an inhalation in half the time, F would double as would the dP.

The CPAP basically works by inflating you and if the pressure drops would an obstruction appear. Though in exhaling the pressure would go up, but you might be gasping and briefly wake up in the night.

Again, would be interested in published articles on nasal restriction and CPAP therapy.

The only article that I can find that is even remotely related to your search is:

http://www.aastweb.org/resources/focusg ... rotech.pdf

You pose an interesting question.

JDS74 thank you for the article referral. Even if it doesn't answer my question it seems to be a good article for my collection of sleep articles.

Read the article this morning. It is about measuring air flow and the various techniques to do it.

Also, about older technologies that shouldn't be used. The article was published in 2001 and the newer and better techniques are already implemented in our equipment.

It doesn't have anything relevant to pressure drop across the nasal and sinus air passageways. But it was a good article to have.

Still need information on air flow drop across nasal passage ways.

As I said, only remotely connected, but interesting. I couldn't find anything else even this close (distant ).