Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Still Preparing: Events

I'm still preparing for having all the data I need / want.  I have the Zeo's brainwaves in real-time, Contec CMS 50E post-sleep (which is fine getting it after the fact for now) and the ResMed S9 AutoSet data post-sleep (I don't know how to get it real-time, tho it has a serial port).  So, for the real-time time series I'm in pretty good shape.  However, I need to track various "events".

Events
An event is something that occurs at a time and generally has a start-time, end-time and duration.  Having any two allows you to calculate the third automatically.  So we put an "Event" object into our software and put them to use because I have events from the ResMed S9 AutoSet; hypopneas, obstructive apneas, central apneas and recording start events.  In ResMed terms, the apneas have an end-time and duration because they are determined after the fact, and the recording start event is instantaneous: the start-time only.  These are already gathered and stored in our real-time historian with the ResMed data collection we do.  This is spiffy because our software has multiple tasks, an spO2 and ResMed file watcher watching a directory and when I've gathered the files I just drag and drop them into that folder where they are "sucked up" and the data is put into the real-time database and the original files are automatically archived for back-up purposes.  OK, I'm getting off topic...

I need to add my own events too, such as periods of time I feel groggy, or really good, or something else of merit that should be recorded.

Doses
A close cousin to an event is what I call a "Dose".  This is an event like activity (has a time and maybe a duration) that has a quantity associated with it.  I call it a Dose because it's like taking a medicine.  "I took X mg of Y drug at Z time", or I just drank a full pot of coffee at this time.  Even exercise is like a dose, "I averaged an aerobic heart rate of X from this time to that time".  Having these events, time stamped, with quantities, gives me information about how much, how long before sleep-onset they occurred, or totaled during the day.  This way I can log that I had a pound of steak for dinner, or took two Excedrin at 10 PM or had an hour of "this strenuous" exercise at 2 PM or 1 cup of Tulsi Tea 10 minutes before bed, etc.

Once I have these Events and Doses, and a means to enter them easily, I'll have I think all that I need.

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