central sleep apnea

It takes a little experience looking at the wave data around the reported CA event to get comfortable telling the difference between an SWJ event and a "real" CA event.

For each CA event, drill down in the wave data (in SH) until you can see about 6 - 8 minutes of data with the CA in the center. Then compare that with a similar period in which no CA event occurred (or Hyp, etc. nothing but uninterrupted sleep.) The wave form for uninterrupted sleep is very regular and smooth. SWJ is disturbed looking. A "real" CA event will be surrounded ( at least the first one if there is a series) by wave data that looks more like regular sleep and less like the jagged stuff that you get while in transition to/from sleep. Look at the first 10 minutes or so of the data when you know you were awake and going to sleep soon. It will be quite irregular and then transition to smooth and regular.

This process of looking down in the details of each breath is more time consuming in SH than in Encore (Respironics machines which I use), for example, because Encore shows all of the wave data down at the individual breath level for the whole night. So it is easier to just review all of it as you scroll the pages of the report. You can do the same in SH, it's just a little slower. The difference is in the perspective between the SH software developer and the Encore developers.

The Encore folks decided on a more detailed technical approach in their reports while the SH developer decided to have an overall view of the data that would be more useful to the patient while keeping the ability to get down in the weeds as necessary, so to speak. I use both.

I've never seen a ResScan report outside of the user manual but it may be more like SH than Encore in how the breathing data is reported.

scruffies wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 15, 2018 11:13 am

How do you tell if the "Clear Airway" events are just throw away SWJ events

I forgot to add Jason's video.
You might watch it and see if it helps you understand what to look for should you decide to put the flow rate under the microscope.
Bottom video
http://freecpapadvice.com/sleepyhead-free-software

Thanks Pugsley and JDS 74 and everyone else for your input. I’ve made some bookmarks so that I can look into it down the road.