A SleepyHead Question

OK, I've loaded SleepyHead on my computer. (My 64-bit Windows 7 couldn't open the ResMed installer). I've loaded my data from my card and now I've got these really cool graphs. Would someone help me understand what they mean? Some of them I can figure out, but a lot of it is Greek to me. Any help would be appreciated.

Well, which particular ones are you interested in?

Events shows you when you had apneas and other bad things.

Flow rate is a graph of how fast air flows in and out of your lungs. Right click with the mouse to zoom in.

Resp rate is how many breaths you take per minute.

Tidal volume is how much air you exhale with each breath.

Minute vent is how many liters of air pass through your lungs each minute.

The top line on leak is how much air flows out the exhaust port plus how much leaks around the mask or through your mouth. The bottom line is an attempt to subtract out the "intentional leak" or how much air leaks out through your mask's exhaust vent. It's the best guess at your "bad" leak rate.

Actually, Archangle, you hit them all! Thanks.

Archangle, now that I've had some time to think about it, let me ask a question or two related to leak. What is an acceptable level of leak? Also, what is a tolerable range between average leak and the 90% leak noted on Sleepyhead summary?

Also, by the way, wonderful icon.

snoringshrink wrote:What is an acceptable level of leak? Also, what is a tolerable range between average leak and the 90% leak noted on Sleepyhead summary?

ResMed machines report excess or unintentional leak. That mask choice selection you pick on your machine tells the machine an approx intentional/vent rate and it is used to figure out the leak that will be reported. Vent rates will vary between masks and will vary with pressure needs. The more pressure used...the more the vent rate.

ResMed says it can safely handle or compensate for excess leaks up to 24 L/min. Above that ResMed says therapy scoring and effectiveness can be impaired. Technically anything up to 24 L/min is probably going to be okay but most people don't want to be that close to the magic red line. If for no other reason than that much leak will likely wake us and anything that causes fragmented sleep is unwanted. So we try to limit the leaks as much as possible.

The 95% leak number just means that for 95% of the time you were at OR below that amount of leak.
Obviously if that number is below 24 L/min....the bulk of the night your leak was acceptable.

Even short termed spikes above the 24 L/min mark aren't something to stress out over. We all have them from time to time anyway. We just don't want to see any prolonged time spent above that 24 L/min mark. I personally don't pay a whole lot of attention to the leak numbers except a brief glance. I like to look at the leak line itself and if it is fairly stable with minimal blips upwards and none prolonged into large leak territory then I count the night as a success as far as leak goes. The numbers themselves can sometimes not give a true indication of how the bulk of the night went.

If I was just counting numbers and not able to see the leak line.....anything below 24 L/min is technically okay but I would probably want to improve it and lean towards 15 L/min and below just to give me adequate wiggle room. Sometimes people get fixated on a single number when in reality there is a wide range of numbers that are quite acceptable. Some people want a 0.0 leak rate...and some people get it. I never have and probably never will. Doesn't really matter to me. As long as the leak line is fairly constant and well below large leak area I am quite satisfied.

Thanks, Pugsy. That helps a lot!