Zeo Personal Sleep Coach?

[chunkyfrog]

bump

[Jay Aitchsee]

Thanks Chunkyfrog.
Somehow I missed this whole thread. Didn't look back far enough, I guess.
Jay

[jnickell]

I would think that the Zeo would recognize sleep apnea. I say that, because if I remember correctly from my original sleep tests years ago, I did not reach REM sleep because of my apnea events. Even if it didn't realize you awakened for mere seconds it would know that you never stay in REM or Deep Sleep wouldn't it? It would show a ton of light sleep, ilk amy sleep test showed??

Has anyone tried it without their CPAP? That would pretty much solve the question!

[teknomom]

I would think that the Zeo would recognize sleep apnea. I say that, because if I remember correctly from my original sleep tests years ago, I did not reach REM sleep because of my apnea events. Even if it didn't realize you awakened for mere seconds it would know that you never stay in REM or Deep Sleep wouldn't it? It would show a ton of light sleep, ilk amy sleep test showed??

Has anyone tried it without their CPAP? That would pretty much solve the question!

I posted on the other thread but will repeat here. I had no REM on either sleep study (poor sleep efficiency) but did show REM on my Zeo - without CPAP. I won't get my machine until Wednesday but I want to try the Zeo again after I've been on it awhile. The online Zeo report isn't detailed enough to show apneic arousals but some say you can get more detail by downloading the data.

[chairmango]

Just wanted to post my experience with SleepZeo:

I've found it to be an effective tool at assessing the overall quality of my sleep. It's not going to give you level of detail as a sleep study or your own CPAP machine.

For me, it tells me that I have 10-14 wake-ups a night (even though I'm sure it's much more because SleepZeo only reports data every 5 min) and I saw lots of disturbances out of REM sleep. In general, when I feel I slept well, my SleepZeo score is around 90. When I feel like I slept poorly (which unfortunately is most nights), my score is in the 70s or 80s.

I like this little machine, but then again, I'm not expecting a high-level of detail or anything like that.

[ProfessorEd]

As to the software being able to recognize sleep, it comes from asking my doctor (plus reading) if they had automated the process adequately yet. It appears not, with human doing much of the work.

As most here know, there is software that detects apnea. the usual argument against using this for diagnosis has been you do not know how many hours someone has been asleep (plus, someone that wants a diagnosis to collect benefits can probably fake apneas by just not breathing). This is obviously a weak argument since in severe cases you know the maximum hour asleep (hours in bed) and dividing the number of apneas by this will often give a rate that leaves little doubt as to the diagnosis. While I human can do many things better (including I suspect this), I am also in favor of saving money and am aware that the expensive sleep lab test is not available to everyone. Even with insurance that covered it, I had trouble getting tested (because it was so expensive they did not just take the doctor's word at first, and talk of law suits was needed).

For what many of us want, the real question is not how accurate such a technique is in absolute terms, but whether within the same person it permits reasonably accurate comparisons over time. or with two different interventions. With only six patients tested for two nights, and none for more than that, it is hard to know the answer to this. They did not report the results on the six patients tested on two nights (which raises a worry that the results were not good). However, I am more optimistic, partially because I suspect there are lots of random errors that will cancel out when the device is used over longer periods.

Suppose you are wondering whether tryptophan taken before bed improves your sleep. With a full sleep lab test this would be two nights and very expensive. Even then, there would be the risk that one night you had had a argument with your spouse and that affected your sleep (or any number of other one time effects). With a cheap machine, one might try one week with the typtophan and one without it. I suspect useful information could emerge. If there was a major improvement in say depth of sleep, I suspect this machine would show it. I suspect, there is a low risk that if the machine would show an adverse effect when the effect was actually positive.

Of course, if this lets you document poorer sleep when your spouse shares a bed with you, this could be bad for marriages <g>. That is partially a joke, since a smart couple might experiment and find a solution for the sleep problem, and with a less sleep deprived spouse things might be better.

[chunkyfrog]

"Successful" romantic activity does wonders for a restful night--at least the remainder of it.

[SethW]

I would think that the Zeo would recognize sleep apnea. I say that, because if I remember correctly from my original sleep tests years ago, I did not reach REM sleep because of my apnea events. Even if it didn't realize you awakened for mere seconds it would know that you never stay in REM or Deep Sleep wouldn't it? It would show a ton of light sleep, ilk amy sleep test showed??

Has anyone tried it without their CPAP? That would pretty much solve the question!

No, it won't necessarily diagnose sleep apnea. I used my Zeo for months before I started with CPAP. My sleep patterns and Z scores were fine. I would say the best night of sleep that I can remember, according to the Zeo and how I felt the next morning, was before I started CPAP. But it was only one night. Then again, I think I am more tired after starting CPAP than before. But I do not have a lot of Zeo data after CPAP because the sensors wore out before I started using CPAP. Nothing about my sleep apnea story is right.

My O2 levels, which were never all that bad, were higher on average after CPAP, though. So that's at least one thing I've got right.

[cosmo]

Has anyone tried it without their CPAP? That would pretty much solve the question!

With cpap


Without cpap

[patrissimo]

Suppose you are wondering whether tryptophan taken before bed improves your sleep. With a full sleep lab test this would be two nights and very expensive. Even then, there would be the risk that one night you had had a argument with your spouse and that affected your sleep (or any number of other one time effects). With a cheap machine, one might try one week with the typtophan and one without it. I suspect useful information could emerge. If there was a major improvement in say depth of sleep, I suspect this machine would show it. I suspect, there is a low risk that if the machine would show an adverse effect when the effect was actually positive.

Two data points, even if they are incredibly accurate (expert-scored PSG), is still just two data points. I'd rather have 30 noisy data points than two great ones, if I'm changing one thing (tryptophan) and measuring an output affected by that plus lots of other variables (sleep). And with a Zeo, you get 30 data points a month .

I don't find that the Zeo correlates very well with my subjective experience of the night, but I think that just means that my problem isn't %age of deep sleep, or %age of REM, or # of full awakenings. My problem is fragmented sleep due to UARS, or something like that. I think if the Zeo says something is better, it is probably better for my sleep, even if it isn't fixing whatever is causing my chronic fatigue.