Dreamstation Hidden Screen

Just fooling around with my DreamStation DS900 ASV machine the other night and found myself looking at a screen that does not appear in either the user manual nor in the clinicians manual.

I have installed pulse-oximeter hardware on my machine so this might only apply to me---however.
When my system starts up (mask on, etc.) the display has a circular image in which various parameter are displayed.
Mine shows current values for:
EPAP
IPAP
SpO2
Heart rate

If, at that point, I enter the clinician mode, the screen displays differently.
Now it is a small table showing:
SpO2
EPAP
IPAP
VTe (I take this to be Tidal Volume measured on exhale)
Minute vent.
Respiratory Rate
Heart Rate
It's interesting to watch the tidal volume change breath to breath.
Because I do get centrals while I'm awake, sometimes is see the machine reacting to one but that is quite rare.

Aside from the pulse-ox related data, does anybody who has a dreamstation get the same or similar display in this mode?

I don't use this machine but perhaps someone who does will read this.

I don't think that a CPAP machine can measure heart rate. That data must be coming from the pulse-oximeter.

Also, how do I get this screen?

D.H. wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 22, 2018 10:06 am

Also, how do I get this screen?

You can't. It's something only the ASV model offers and might be tied to the integrated pulse ox that he is also using.

The reason I brought this issue up was to see if other DreamStation models also had this or equivalent "hidden" displays built in.
I was looking for a kind soul who has an auto DreamStation (any model) who would be willing to do a tiny experiment and then report the results.

The experiment is as follows:
1) mask up and start the machine
2) When it stabilizes and is running nicely, THEN enter the clinical mode and see what is displayed.

Back when I had and was using a PR 750, it displayed information about what was going on but it was very limited. The DreamStation DS900 I now have does something similar - showing inhale pressure alternating with exhale pressure. They are not labeled as such so maybe it is just reporting the current pressure that changes regularly with any bi-level machine. I only accidently found this "hidden" display and wondered if the same or similar ones were in other DreamStation models.


In my machine, this "hidden" display reports respiratory rate. This number is important in the internal algorithm and can be easily calculated from the SD card data (SH does that exactly and reports it.)
It also reports Minute Vent as well as Tidal Volume. The some comment applies.

The data is there inside the machine and can be used in the internal algorithm depending on the particular machine and its settings. So I just wondered if a special display was available through the clinicians access for other models. It certainly is not documented in the clinicians manual and might be something leftover from the programming developers (lots of software has this sort of thing that just gets left in and not documented.)

As to my particular setup, I have added the PR pulse-oximeter module so I can see what is happening with my own SpO2 levels during the night. For practical purposes (with some limitations) what I get is a over-night sleep study data report every morning. One of the limitations is in the reporting of apnea events. The PR machines (and others I think) report apnea events or at least most of them but do not distinguish between ones that would be scored in a real sleep study and ones that would be discarded. It is my understanding (imperfect as that may be) that any (??) apnea event that occurs during an arousal period or an awake period is discarded and not counted. So the AHI data being reported in my machine is really higher than would have been reported if it had been during a sleep study.

For example, a reported AHI of 2 or so on a CPAP machine might really be the same as a 0 in the sleep lab and the 2 events per hour reported might well have all occurred during arousals, etc.. Big Caveat: without EEG data the individual patient (me for example) cannot know for sure so this is purely speculative.