Understanding Sleepyhead data

[kderevan]

I can find the glossary of ResMed terms that explain what "flow limitation" and "tidal volume" mean, but I still can't make much sense out of all that data from Sleepyhead. Is there anywhere that shows what ranges of all those terms are considered "good" or just what I should be looking for in all those measurements?

[SnuffySleeper]

This video was one of the most helpful for me when starting out with sleepyhead:

[MAPnea]

Hi, kderevan,
It took me months to get brave enough to download Sleepyhead and try to figure out what was going on. Congrats on taking a closer look at what's going on while you are sleeping and asking for help.

Thanks, SnuffySleeper for this video!

[kderevan]

Thank you for that video link!

[herbm]

It's great that you want to learn everything about the data.

Keep that up -- and also realize you can make sense of your therapy with about 20% of the information so learning all the details does not need to get in the way of your taking charge and understanding your treatment data.

Mostly you care about the AHI, the Events, the Pressure, the Leak, and the Flow Rate.

However, the Leak is mostly about the MEDIAN and the 95% value or maybe the area around some event or other artifact you are trying to decypher on rare occasions.

For the Flow Rate you most look at the CHANGES in the flow rate graph around an EVENT (by dragging over the even in SleepyHead to magnify that area is easiest -- you can also use cursor keys.)

Understanding the "numbers" is fine, but it is mostly about either the cessation of breathing (which is pretty obvious) or the relative reduction which is easiest to see visually (as opposed to mathematically.)

I am not discounting the math or exact technical definitions, just pointing out that you can go a long way to a useful understanding without worrying about those details.