Friday, January 20, 2012

Equipment

I have a variety of equipment that I am using and I might get more, we'll see.  Here's my list:
  • ResMed S9 AutoSet. This is a medical device that is a fully data capable auto positive airway pressure (APAP) sleep apnea treatment system.  It applies a varying air pressure to my face using a sealed mask, which forces my airway open if it needs to as I sleep.  This device gives me information such as:
    * Event Flags: What kind of breathing event I have, when it occurred and for how long
    * Air Flow Rate as I breath in and out
    * Mask Pressure which varies as the machine tries to eliminate events
    * Tidal Volume which is the amount of air I'm breathing in and out
    * Minute Ventilation, similar to Tidal Volume, but the amount per minute.
    * AHI, an index that reports the events/hour.
    * Leak rate (how much the mask is leaking)
    * Snore Index (how much I'm snoring)
    * Respiration Rate (breaths / minute)

    Data from the ResMed S9 AutoSet is from an SD card, which you pop out of the ResMed S9 AutoSet and put into a card reader in your PC.  Presently, until I can get this data into our software, I use SleepyHead to view trend charts with it.

    Note: I highlight the word AutoSet because so there is no confusion with other ResMed "Auto" machines that are not necessarily data capable.
    .

  • CMS 50 E Pulse Oximeter.  This is a that device clips on my finger and as I sleep it records my heart rate and blood oxygen levels (spO2).  It is not a medical device, and is therefore not very accurate, but good enough to know what is going on.  The pulse rate is reasonably accurate.  The spO2 is within 2% when above a 70% spO2 reading.

    Data from the CMS 50 is available through a provided USB/Serial cable and the data can stream from the device in real-time, or the device can store it for up to 24 hours each session and then it can be transferred to your PC using the provided USB/Serial cable.  It comes with two software applications; real-time and session review (SpO2 Review).  I use the latter to fetch sessions off of the device and the SpO2 Review application dumps the data to disk, which then I import into our software.

    Available from Amazon (?) or the PulseOxStore.
    Software and the device driver, if you need them, may be found here at the PulseOxStore.
    .

  • Zeo Bedside Sleep Management System. (psst... you can get it cheaper on Amazon).  A rather cool non-medical device that has a headband that you wear and it measures electrical activity through the skin on your forehead.  This activity is in part facial movements but principally your brain's frontal lobe electrical activity.  The Zeo Bedside gathers this data in a fancy alarm-clock and generates various information about your sleep, most notably crude, but generally correct, estimates of what your sleep stages (Wake, REM, Light and Deep) were during the night every 5 minutes. It is computing this every 30 seconds based on frequencies calculated every second, based on a brain electrical activity measured 128 times per second.

    Data from the Zeo is available either through

    * An SD card, on which there is a night's sleep session, which then can be transferred to your PC, uploaded to their web site and used in a user friendly sleep coaching system with lots of interesting charts, statistics and such.  You can also download data, summarized by night, to your PC again in a CSV file, one column of which has 30 second sleep stage estimates.

    * A serial port in real time.  The Zeo does not come with a USB/Serial cable however, you must make one. :(  I did and I'll tell you how.  And when you do make one, there is an application called ZeoScope that enables you to see your brainwave and the amplitude (I think) of Alpha, Beta (1, 2, 3), Delta, Gamma, Theta frequencies the impedance of the band on your skin and also the sleep stages the Zeo is estimating.

    Presently, I use both the SD card / web site to get Sleep Stage charts and a serial cable to collect the real-time stream into our software.

  •  X16-1C Accelerometer by Gulf Coast Data Concepts.  Tells me the orientation of my body and head while I sleep, such as on my belly, head to left or right, or on my back, head left or right.  This device confirmed without a doubt my positional sleep apnea.

    This device is not only an accelerometer, but a USB thumb drive that contains the data it creates in text CSV file format.  Spiffy !  Easy.

2 comments:

  1. It's a nice post about resmed s9. This device is very useful in sleep apnea.. Thanks for sharing.....

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  2. It's a very informative post about resmed s9. This device is very useful in sleep apnea.Thanks for sharing. Here are some few CPAP machines & other products which might be helpful for the people who suffer from respiratory issues.

    ReplyDelete