AHI, High is bad, right?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:18 pm

I am new at this, so please help me understand. My sleep study showed an AHI of 102.5. From studying this forum, it appears that is a pretty bad number? Can someone explain what it means? Is it the average number of apneas/hypopneas per hour? per minute? Can you recommend a website that explains the various terms reported in the sleep study?

Thanks,
Sleepyhead in Texas

hecate · Post by **hecate** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:22 pm

Click on the CPAPopedia icon above. You can get a lot of your answers there.

Liz

Aswab · Post by **Aswab** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:21 pm

Here is the link:

viewtopic.php?t=1775

It appears in your message at the very bottom in an active link labeled AHI.

David

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:57 pm

Your well into the severe range. To calculate them out yourself, take the total time you slept divided by the number of events seen during that period divided by 60/hr to obtain your AHI score. So if your AHI was 102.5/hr, and you slept on avg. 7hrs that is over 700 events per night.

AHI is the SUM of BOTH obstructive events (Hypoapnea's + Apnea events), both of these events result in a drop to your SAO2 oxygen levels. You can also calculate it out individually (i.e. HI=Hypoaneas, AI=Apnea). Flow Limitations are not included in this AHI score, but some like to count them in RDI scoring, same for snores, calculated the same way but listed seperately.

Look on your study report, you want only the time spent "sleeping" or recording, not the total time spent at the lab. I think it is better if you understand the difference between the events seen, if that AHI score of 102 is made up of 60% hypoapneas, then you want to be sure your cpap is eliminating those guys with any minimum pressure used, if for example your wanting to use a autopap, you want the low pressure setting high enough to eliminate most.