Significance of tidal volume?

[Chuck Connors]

I am interested in learning more about the significance of tidal volume. It's my understanding that normal breathers have a tidal volume of around 550. For people with sleep apnea, their tidal volume is closer to 800 or 900. I'd appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this, as it is an area in SleepyHead that is tracked. Thank you. -Chuck-

[Pugsy]

Where did you come up with that cpap users have a different tidal volume than non cpap users?

normal breathers have a tidal volume of around 550. For people with sleep apnea, their tidal volume is closer to 800 or 900.

and are you referring to max, median or 95% numbers?

Tidal volume has more to do with the person's physical stature than whether a person uses cpap or not.
Men vs women vs short or tall sort of thing. Also general lung conditions will play a big factor..healthy lungs vs not so healthy.

My median average tidal volume is running around 300...short small woman though...not quite 5 foot tall. I sometimes hit 800 max but doesn't stay there very long. It doesn't mean much of anything except it's normal for me and my healthy 62 yr old lungs.

There's a wide range of norms...and we all bounce around within whatever is normal for us and my normal range is likely different than your normal range.

[Chuck Connors]

Thank you for the reply and information. I will locate the source of the information in the books I read which discussed tidal volume in people with sleep apnea vs. people without sleep apnea, and post here. I don't recall that the source makes a distinction between max, median and 95% numbers. Based on what I am hearing, it's a meaningless number anyway.

[Pugsy]

Yep..pretty much meaningless number unless someone has known respiratory function problems and they would already know about the problem. Tidal volume might be more important with central sleep apnea people if they were having great difficulty with the patient triggering the breathing.
For those of us without those special situations...TV isn't something I ever look at.

[BleepingBeauty]

I think of Tidal Volume as basically the volume of air that my lungs are able to deal with, if that makes sense. I had pneumonia earlier in the summer and have since quit smoking cigarettes. I've watched my TV steadily increase since then, even with the diminished capacity due to the illness. FWIW, my BPM has also decreased since then. The numbers are moving in the right direction(s), IMO.

It's not something I focus on; just noting what's happening.