What does (CA) Clear Airway men with OSCAr?

[Reesche]

Can you tell me what exactly CA or Clear Airway means in Oscar?  Central Apmea? And what does that really mean to mean?

See Screan shot...

Reesche

[quiescence at last]

The chart you posted is suggestive that you were sleeping most of the night. Do you remember being awakened, and anything about how you felt with the equipment or mask. Did this sleep make you feel better?

Anyway, welcome to the forum.

QAL

[staceyburke]

Clear airway (CA) also called Central apnea.  This happens when the CO2 level is lower than you are use to.  It means that there is no blockage but you just are not breathing.  It could be that you are holding your breath when you roll over or pick up a blanket.  Or again you CO2 level is low and your body does not "need to take a breath".  If you did not have many during your sleep study then in is called emergent and those will stop as your body gets use to the therapy.  

You also have some positional apnea - or also called chin tucking.  It is when your chin falls down to your sternum, cutting off you own air way.  Your machine will not do anything for positional apnea.   You just have to find a way to stay out of the position.  You can tell they are positional apnea if they are clustered together (just the Oa and H events not centrals)

[CPAPfriend]

hey Reesche,

CA means that the machine has detected an abnormality in flowrate and, in response, it sends a pressure pulse down the tube to see why your breathing has changed. If the pulse indicates that you are obstructed, the machine will flag it as an obstruction. If the machine sends a pressure pulse and it detects that the pulse travels through your airway without obstruction, then it classifies it as a 'clear airway'. Clear airway is usually a central apnea, which is when the neural tasked with autonomic respiratory drive does not trigger breathing. The most common reason for this is a blunted respiratory drive from insufficient CO2 build-up, which can be the result of therapy removing too much CO2. This is common to pressure differentials that are too high. In other words, increasing pressure support (the difference between IPAP and EPAP) also increases ventilation (removal of CO2). Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions.