Dreamstation Go vs. AirSense 10 - Central Apneas

I love my AirSense 10 for home use. I recently got a Dreamstation Go for business trips. On the AirSense I have EPR set to full time at 3 and on the Dreamstation I have A-flex set to 1. My Central apnea’s with the AirSense average .8 and on the Dreamstation they average 4.8. My AHIs on the AirSense average 1.0 and on the Dreamstation 1.8.

I initially had the A-flex set to 3 on the Dreamstation and I was miserable. I caught myself trying to mouth breathe with my mouth taped.

I am wondering if the way the Dreamstation handles pressure relief is potentially the problem. Any ideas?

Thank you!

I have the exact same setup as you machine wise.
The Dreamstation's AFlex is a complete joke IMO. It's tries to predict your breathing pattern.
Anytime you have disturbed breathing during the night it makes it much worse because the algorithm is out of sync. If you slept soundly all night I guess it might be ok as your breathing follows a very regular pattern when asleep, but it becomes irregular when disturbed or awake and not many OSA patients sleep soundly all night even with CPAP.
Not sure how they got it past medical device testing as this seems to be a very common complaint.
CFlex seems to work a bit better on setting 1 or 2, but it still tends to try rush your breathing by returning to full IPAP during your exhale.
Personally, I use EPR 2 on the Resmed because it is so good at reducing flow limits, and no relief on the Dreamstation when I'm travelling. I use a higher minimum pressure on the Dreamstation to compensate.

On a side note - I can believe how archaic CPAP machines are technically. In control system and process control world it's so easy and cheap these days to integrate simple AI into a controller to learn and recognise patterns in flow rates. This can then be used to improve and optimise the control.
This would vastly improve CPAP event detection and accuracy, and consequently greatly improve event control, and it would also allow the CPAP to detect with reasonably high accuracy when a patient is awake or not so it can ignore and not respond or count events while awake. For a modern $2-3k piece of kit I'd expect a lot more. They're clearly designed by doctors/medical people, and not control systems engineer as they should be.

Thank you, SleepyPaolo! I will try using the Dreamstation with no relief.

I agree with your comment on AI.

I also tried the Transcend (but it leaked water) and the AirMini (but the HumidX filter dried out too much for occasional use and the manufacturer says you should not wet it). I really want this to work.

SleepyPaolo wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:07 pm

On a side note - I can believe how archaic CPAP machines are technically. In control system and process control world it's so easy and cheap these days to integrate simple AI into a controller to learn and recognise patterns in flow rates. This can then be used to improve and optimise the control.
This would vastly improve CPAP event detection and accuracy, and consequently greatly improve event control, and it would also allow the CPAP to detect with reasonably high accuracy when a patient is awake or not so it can ignore and not respond or count events while awake. For a modern $2-3k piece of kit I'd expect a lot more. They're clearly designed by doctors/medical people, and not control systems engineer as they should be.

I happen to know a thing or two about this space, and there are very talented engineers and researchers working on more automated control systems for CPAP and ventilators in general. But these are medical devices. Subject to approval by the FDA/CE. Who mandates a lot of rigor and proof before said cheap-and-easy AI controller would ever be released to the market; let alone how long it would take for the medical profession to accept them. And on a personal note, I wouldn't want to be the guinea pig with a lung injury resulting from said AI as the kinks are worked out; nor the manufacturer or physician sued for it. I have worked both in medical and commercial/consumer arenas, and things move more slowly in this space for the aforementioned reasons, which is sometimes bad and sometimes good. But definitely not because the wrong people are designing them.

Kind regards;
SteveO