Pressure pulses

[MitchS]

I have been seeing pressure pulses in my waveform data. What are they?

[OpalRose]

The PR machines send out pressure pulses to test whether the airway is open or obstructed.
From my understanding, it then flags the event based on that determination.

[zonk]

Whenever apnea is detected, the machine uses small pressure pulses to determine whether apnea is obstructive or central

[Jimsp1]

From the help section of DreamMapper

An apnea is detected when there is an 80% reduction in airflow from a baseline for at least 10 seconds if there is no airflow detected for 10 seconds. During the apnea, one or more pressure test pulses are delivered by the device. The device evaluates the response of the patient to the test pulse(s) and assesses whether the apnea has occurred while the patient has a clear airway or an obstructed airway. The airway is determined to be clear if the pressure test pulse generates a significant amount of flow; otherwise the airway is determined to be obstructed. When the airway is clear then a Clear Airway Apnea event is recorded.

[MitchS]

That makes sense. They occur mostly around apnea events, but I have seen some in sections of the waveform in which no events were recorded. In those cases I did notice that the pulses were at the end of a wave form that looked a lot like an apnea event, only shorter.

Thanks for your quick responses.

[AshSF]

You are probably confusing the hunt-n-peck generated pressure changes used by Philips respironics machines (go up about 1.5cm pressure in 2 minutes and come back down to original pressure in next 2 minutes). These are not 'pressure pulses'. Those can not be seen on pressure graph because they are less than a second in duration and can only be seen as tick marks on the event graph.

[jonathan richardson]

Is there any way to turn off these hunt and peck pulses that anyone has found? they do show up on the event graph and make it impossible for me to fall asleep.

[Sleeprider]

Set your machine to fixed CPAP pressure or in Auto mode, set the minimum and maximum the same. Once you know your therapy needs, it is pretty easy to set pressure to your 90% pressure and make it fixed.

[jonathan richardson]

Thank you for your quick reply. I probably asked the wrong question and/or used the wrong terminology.  There are pressure pulses (they come up in the event graph in SleepyHead). They test for things like Centrals.  Those quick puffs of air happen constantly because my breathing pattern when trying to go to sleep is too slow, and the machine doesn't seem to be detecting my exhales.  As soon as I try to fall asleep they hit me.

Thank you.