Therapy hours are WRONG; Blower hours are CORRECT. Ideas?

Ok folks,

For the last three nights in a row this has happened. And for all I know it happened the first night I owned the machine and I just didn't notice it since it took forever for the LCD to show ANY numbers that morning and I just gave up and downloaded the data anyway.

At any rate, the last three nights, I zeroed out the data numbers on my PR S1 because I want to be able to get overnight data. I made sure that the therapy hours, the blower hours, and the AHI were all showing 0 in the clinician's menu before I went to bed.

And each time, the next morning, the THERAPY hours in the info menu said one thing and the BLOWER hours said something else. On all three days, the therapy hours are substantially smaller than the blower hours and I have NO idea why. These numbers should be the same, shouldn't they? After all, there's supposed to only be one day's worth of data to average because I reset the data, right?

At any rate, this means that I have no way right now of figuring out what the heck is going on in terms of AHI unless I download the data into Encore---and the whole point of zeroing out the data is to allow me the luxury of NOT having to download that data every single morning before breakfast.

With Respironics machines, (the M Series and the System One), I never use the LCD data because it is just not accurate.

As said in another thread, I reset my data every evening on days that I have a nap, because I don't want nap data on my card. Nap data is quite different because of the short sleep time. I don't reset it to see 1 day's data.

If I want 1 day's data, which I often do, I use the computer software information. I am using Encore Viewer and it doesn't take very long (a few minutes) to get the data up and saved in PDF in my documents or just look at it in Encore Viewer, if I don't want to save it.

When I get it into Encore Viewer, I can choose to save it daily or weekly, or even monthly if I want.

My point is:

If the PR S1's LCD's data are incorrect, that's just as bad as providing us with no LCD data at all in my humble opinion.

I'm trying to avoid having to boot up a computer to download data every single morning just to find out what my overnight AHI (and hence overnight number of events) are in the morning: I work and I'm already exhausted enough in the morning from fighting the dang CPAP every night---I wake up feeling like I'm running a marathon in my sleep. Once my spring semester starts, I'd really rather NOT have to find the "few" minutes every single morning to boot the computer and download the data to my morning routine of getting myself, the hubby, the AFS kid up and off, the occasional need to shovel snow and scrap my car, fight traffic, and then fight to find a parking spot on campus.

But you have to do what you have to do. And if morning downloads are what are required, I guess I'm stuck with having to do them; but that does NOT mean that I think the need to do them is reasonable or "easy". And I will be a grouch and say loud and clear that PR is doing patients NO FAVORS at all giving us meaningless data on the LCD.

Looks like my wild guess 12 hours ago is the direction to go:
12 hours ago, on this thread of your's viewtopic/t58482/I-dont-TRUST-my-PRS1s- ... thing.html I wrote:

ozij wrote:You can do a search for "Respironics" and "Math" on the forum -- Respironics' math has always been considered unique by those who ran into it....

A rather wild thought about the difference between "blower hours" and "therapy hours" - and please bear in mind that I have no experience with this machine: Could the machine be subtracting time in "RERA" from "therapy hours" because it considers you awake?

O.

Here's what Respironics has to say about blower hours vs. therapy hours:

http://sleepdevices.respironics.com/PDF ... pGuide.pdf

Reports blower hours
and therapy hours
(blower on and
breathing detected)

In a PM, SleepyCPAP has identified the likely root cause of my problem: It seems to be caused by the fact that the PR S1's on board clock turns the day over at noon GMT time regardless of where you are located in the world. Moreover, there seems to be NO WAY to adjust this from either the patient or clinician's menu. Seems like a really stupid engineering decision or design flaw to me.

At any rate, what seems to be going on is that the "therapy hours" are only showing the hours the machine was run from the time I went to bed to 7:00 AM EST (local time in Buffalo, NY), which is noon, GMT, since EST is -5 GMT. And I'm sleeping well past 7:00 AM since I'm a college professor who is off on Christmas break and who is not getting sound asleep until well past midnight local time anyway. The blower hours, of course, are recording the full number of hours the machine is blowing between the data resets. And the full data is being recorded correctly on the SD card, so the data shows up correctly in EncoreViewer.

Now I have not yet been able to figure out exactly how the PR S1 is computing that "one day average" AHI number when I reset the data to 0 but sleep beyond 7:00 AM. Hence I do not yet trust it as having any meaning for me. [Data that I don't know how to compute (at least in theory) is meaningless to me as a mathematician.]

Right now, I have to say this about my early experience with the PR S1 BiPAP:

I like the feel of the PR S1 BiPAP and I like the fact that I did not have to give up either a standard SD data card or a 15 mm hose. The BiPAP with setting 8/6 and Rise Time set to 3 with BiFlex OFF is much, much more comfortable when I'm lying in bed fighting for sleep than the S9 APAP running at 7--8 with EPR = 2 was. But I think it's stupid that you cannot change the ramp time from the patient's setup menu.

I am really missing the Sleep Quality Menu on the S9 every single morning and I'm really wondering just what the heck the S1's engineers were thinking when they designed the info menu and made the decision to make it impossible to change when the day rolls over on the PR S1.

And I have to end with this bit of editorializing: Providing bad or misleading data on the PR S1's LCD screen is really no better than providing no data at all on the LCD screen.

robysue wrote: Providing bad or misleading data on the PR S1's LCD screen is really no better than providing no data at all on the LCD screen.

This is the problem many experienced with the M series machines. We saw people who reported bad LED data posting often. Leaks rates weren't even close to what reality could be often.

Respironics math sucks - looks like they didn't get it all fixed this series of machines either.

I'm not excusing the design flaws, but perhaps this point will make the prospect less daunting:

Although you may need to look at EV daily when you first get the machine, you probably won't need to do that once you get your therapy "dialed in".

After 1-2 months, I only needed to use EV every 2 to 3 days, and now weekly is sufficient to ascertain that my therapy remains effective.

I check EV more frequently if I make a change to the system, such as a using new mask, or if something doesn't feel "right".

I think you may be able to reset the time on the machine with Encore Pro. It doesn't technically reset the time on the machine, but it does reset the data, and--if I recall correctly--this carried over into the times indicated on Encore Viewer. Even with only one "patient" and very little data collected, I recall that it took several hours for the software to reset the time. I find Pro exceedingly cumbersome for personal use and I only keep it in case I want to look at waveform data for some reason. Viewer meets my needs 99% of the time.

I agree with MDH. The ultimate goal is to get your therapy dialed in well, at which point the data becomes pretty boring, and the need to check it daily will fade away. I could care less if my AHI is 0.2 or 0.3 more or less on a particular day. If there is a problem, I want to see what's going on, and I want the advance warning if a problem is brewing I'm not aware of yet, but otherwise my stats are pretty stable day to day, week to week, month to month, and I find the desire to check my data is waning. I find I have to remind myself to check it every few weeks now. That's a good thing. I can get on with the rest of my life.

Lest you think that I or anyone else telling you this has it "easy" and thus there is no comparison to your situation, nothing could be further from the truth. I think all of us have had our struggles with this therapy (that's--after all, why we're here), and it took me (and others, I'm sure) a lot of hard work and persistence to reach this point. So hang in there!

robysue wrote:Ok folks,

For the last three nights in a row this has happened. And for all I know it happened the first night I owned the machine and I just didn't notice it since it took forever for the LCD to show ANY numbers that morning and I just gave up and downloaded the data anyway.

At any rate, the last three nights, I zeroed out the data numbers on my PR S1 because I want to be able to get overnight data. I made sure that the therapy hours, the blower hours, and the AHI were all showing 0 in the clinician's menu before I went to bed.

And each time, the next morning, the THERAPY hours in the info menu said one thing and the BLOWER hours said something else. On all three days, the therapy hours are substantially smaller than the blower hours and I have NO idea why. These numbers should be the same, shouldn't they? After all, there's supposed to only be one day's worth of data to average because I reset the data, right?

At any rate, this means that I have no way right now of figuring out what the heck is going on in terms of AHI unless I download the data into Encore---and the whole point of zeroing out the data is to allow me the luxury of NOT having to download that data every single morning before breakfast.

First off Total Blower hours canNOT be zeroed - that would be like you zeroing your odometer, it's not allowed.

You don't say how much your therapy hours differ but consider the possibility that YOU - yes YOU are causing this problem each time you zero the therapy hours. I am not here to debate whether or not Respironics rounding errors are causing you distress only for you to consider that if each time you zero the therapy hours and the gap gets larger perhaps math is not their strong suit.

Getting the software is in fact THE BEST way for you to check your daily data - it was for me.

I do agree the daily data should be available on the LCD. I also agree the software should be included with the machine IF a special software is required to read the data (it shouldn't be, but I can't change that).

viewtopic/t49546/viewtopic.php?p=454332#p454332
Re: Trouble with GMT offset (Remstar Auto A-flex PR System One)

Skier757 wrote:Hi,

With the newer firmware (1.2 and above I think), you need to set the GMT offset in the software. From the topic linked above:

"To set the time zone in the Encore Pro 2.2 software, select Company Settings, then select the company name (Encore Company was the default in my software), then select the Offices tab. You should see the time zone that the software is set to there. Seclect Edit to make changes to the time zone and to the Daylight Savings Time option (DST Observed) if desired."

I used this hint and it worked perfectly, and recalculated my existing reports to properly show my time zone.

Brooks, aka Skier757