recommend mask for 86 yr. old lady

My 86 year old mother has just been prescribed a CPAP machine. The mask the DME brought is a Respironics Comfort Gel. With her arthritic fingers and certain amount of dementia, there is no way she can get the mask unhooked for her multiple nighttime trips to the bathroom. Can someone suggest a less intimidating mask that she might actually be able to use and might help with compliance for Medicare? Thanks.

Hi
You might just want to re-purpose the straps with more easily opened velcro connections.

Hi Liz,
If its any comfort to you - cpap will probably help reduce some of those multiple trips to the bathroom.

Will your mom remember to put the mask on when she comes back from the bathroom trip? Can she manage to seal it properly? Those are two issues she may have with any mask - and they are both critical for therapy success.

One of the recommendation on some maks manuals is to disconnect the mask at the hose for a bathroom trip - can she do that with her arthritic fingers?

I use nasal pillows mask, which I can slip off my head - without disconnecting any part. I'm not sure that's relevant for your mom.

O.

I wonder if a Respironics Simplicity might work well for her. It's a very minimal mask.

Do you think she could tolerate nasal pillows at all? I wear those most of the time now but still have a Simplicity that I use sometimes.

I have Rheumatoid Arthritis so understand the stiff finger problem. I only get up once a night but I don't remove my mask (not the nasal mask or the nasal pillows). I turn off the machine and then just disconnect the hose and, leaving the mask on, I breathe through my mouth while I am up . I go back to bed and reconnect the hose to the mask and go back to sleep.

Maybe you mean a Comfort Gel Full Face mask. That would be a differtent story since it covers mouth and nose.

What pressure is her CPAP set at? If it is 10 or less, she may do quite well with a nasal pillow type mask like the Swift LT.

Dreamstalker,

That is an interesting comment. I use the Swift LT at 16 - 20 Auto, running most of the time at 17, and really no leak problems, but I suppose I did have to have a few nights to get used to that pressure inflating my nose!

Sam

sepool wrote:Dreamstalker,

That is an interesting comment. I use the Swift LT at 16 - 20 Auto, running most of the time at 17, and really no leak problems, but I suppose I did have to have a few nights to get used to that pressure inflating my nose!

Sam

Everyone is different but I have noticed during my time on the forum that most folks start to have leak problems when using nasal masks with pressures over 10 cm. My own threshold seems to be between 11 cm and 12 cm of pressure ... and then I begin to mouth leak. YMMV.