Events Hierarchy

[txrpls]

So I was just playing around with the Sleepyhead data in Excel and it got me to wondering if there is a hierarchy of events. Is an OA more serious than a CA? I did some searching on the site but did not find much information. Maybe I'm searching using the wrong terms. 

   

[Walla Walla]

This is probably not the answer you want, but any event that causes a loss of O2 or disruption of sleep serious no matter what you call it.

[Hojo]

I'm with Walla Walla on this, and I'm also concerned about the length of apnea.  You can have an OA event that gets taken care of by the pressure ramping up to open the airway, but not so with CA event, unless you have an ASV.

[Ron AKA]

My opinion is that AHI is a good rough indicator of the severity of sleep apnea. I don't think there really is any significant difference between a OA or CA in impact on your overall health. An apnea is a period of time without any respiration.  If you want to pick one indicator to follow, I would suggest Total Time in Apnea. SleepyHead reports that number, at least with a ResMed machine, and I think that is a better indicator than AHI or any specific component of AHI, like OA, CA, or H. 

Now that is from the perspective of damage from apnea. If you are looking for a number to use to determine how well you have your CPAP optimized then it is a different matter. A CPAP is not going to have a huge effect on the number of CA's, but it does on OA and H. If you have to pick one number to focus on for optimization, I would suggest the OA portion of AHI. 

Just my thoughts...

[CB91710]

I'm with Walla Walla on this, and I'm also concerned about the length of apnea.  You can have an OA event that gets taken care of by the pressure ramping up to open the airway, but not so with CA event, unless you have an ASV.

This.
Also keep in mind that many logged CA events are actually non-events.
My AHI often reports 0.6-0.9 due to CA events in the late morning when I am drifting in and out while deciding whether to get up.