Measuring Central Apneas with Sleepyhead

As far as I can tell, the flat lines in my breathing that are triggering my machine to prompt Sleepyhead to record a CA (Clear Airway and thus a possible Central Apnea event) never come close to lasting 10 seconds. All are under three seconds. Many under 2 seconds. Does this mean they are negligible and actually ought not be driving my AHI up?

It's natural to not breathe now and then at night. Everybody does it, especially when transitioning sleep stages.

It depends on the frequency of them, and whether they're disturbing your sleep or are part of your sleep cycles. Shorter ones in general are not as bad, regardless.

by definition an Apnea event either Obstructive or Central would have to last a minimum of 10 seconds to be qualified as an "Event" that would effect AHI .........so the software shouldn't record an event lasting less than ten seconds........

Darryl, can you post such short lines of CAs on SH?

I can see here straight lines in my Flow graph in ResScan that have not been flagged. But I can't tell if they are obstructive or central events.

I have never tried to post such a thing but I shall try, especially since my son is home and perhaps could help his Dad do such a thing. But tell me this. Before I post, should I expand them as i had to in order measure the time?

SleepyHead marks mine as either CA or OA.

DarrylM wrote:

SleepyHead marks mine as either CA or OA.

Well, the untagged lines are shorter than 10 Sec each and thus not flagged.


What's the meaning of:

Events=2; Duration= 00:01:56

Is it the combined duration of the 2 events?

It means that the entire time covered by this view is 1:56 and that with this period, two events have occurred and they are the ones flagged.