Sleepyhead SW & REM interpretation?

[krl]

Now you veteran, seasoned cpap advisers be gentle on me. I've only looked at the sleepyheads software results once, and it was a bit daunting. Here's the ultimate question. Is it possible to determine if you've achieved REM sleep from the results of this diagnostic software?

[palerider]

Now you veteran, seasoned cpap advisers be gentle on me. I've only looked at the sleepyheads software results once, and it was a bit daunting. Here's the ultimate question. Is it possible to determine if you've achieved REM sleep from the results of this diagnostic software?

not beyond guessing.

[Pugsy]

No.
To know sleep stages definitively a person needs EEG data. SleepyHead only reports what the machine gathers in terms of data and EEG data is not part of it. These machines only measure air flow.

[rkl122]

............ Is it possible to determine if you've achieved REM sleep from the results of this diagnostic software?

Hi krl. While I agree that polysomnography is the only scientific way to know for sure, I do believe that I can identify some REM periods accurately. Not necessarily for every instance of REM, but for 2-3 instances/night, most nights.

Note the humps in the respiration trace below.



I get these most nights, the first one always at the same elapsed time +/- 30 min. Notice the recording break just after the first one. That's a bathroom break. I use auto-off, and it leaves a clear marker. Turns out many of those arousals occur just after a vivid dream. So I know I was dreaming just before the break, and feel confident the respiration increase marks a REM period. My sleepdoc agrees (for whatever that's worth.) Note also the decrease in respiration as the second session begins. My awake periods are characterized by noticeably lower respiration rate. There may be other REM windows for which there's no change in the respiration rate, but I do believe the dramatic increases correspond to REM. From my reading, some people have a decrease in respiration rate during REM, others show no change. In my case, it's a bump. So you can examine your respiration trace over a period of weeks and see if you can correlate bumps or valleys with dreams or arousals.

One reason this is of interest to me is that during these REM periods, I get few to no apnea events. Even on nights where the AHI is substantially higher than for the night shown above. That observation is also reproducible. It's contrary to the accepted norm, which is that events will increase during REM. I have a theory as to why this happens in my case, and hope to start a separate thread after more research.

Meantime, I dream of dreaming all night and being free of OSA.

-Ron