Weinmann SOMNObalance suitable for central apnea?

[Sleeprider]

Interesting graphs, and I'd like to learn more about how you put them in Sleepyhead. I would agree these are likely CA events. The first one commences on an exhale, and the next four charts show an inhale, followed by breath-holding. The odd breathing pattern is a quick inhale, breath-hold, quick exhale and inhale. Almost like sniffing.

[TBMx]

to be honest, I have no clue at all why the machine is NOT flagging some of what you showed as "apneas".
Looking at that detail-level is one thing the SB is really bad at. Resolution of the chart you are seeing is 5 Hz - meaning one data-sample every 200 ms. If in doubt: always look on the total-flow.

If there is nothing at all during that times in the status-graph the machine "missed" it. I have so far only seen some of such events - meaning 1 or 2 a whole night. Compared directly to an "in home sleep study" (PG) not all but most of those got flagged by the PG as apneas.
I have no clue if it is: a bad machine (sensor), a fault in the firmware, an unknown event to SH, or if it is "correct" (in plain technical detection terms) - 5Hz is not good enough to know if there was no flow at all - maybe there was a short spike which made the machine think: "he is breathing" again.
(the lower resolution is just on the data-card - internally the machines use a much higher resolution - I guess at least 50Hz or more)

just by the way: the SB has an analogous outlet (for 2 channels which you can choose "freely") . I haven't played around with that so far.

[dark]

Last night I took off the mask when I was half awake and I didn't put it back on. I didn't even remember it. I recorded what has happened with my pulse oxymeter. Sleeping without mask is a bad thing!

[yrnkrn]

These are ugly set of apneas. SPO2 looks much better even with plain fixed pressure compared with nothing.

AHI value (and other stats) are extremely noisy, especially when you are just starting out and trying stuff. I would not draw conclusions from the difference between AHI 2.84 and AHI 3.26 for one night. It is more reliable to go over the flow and see which events happened and whether they indicate pressure change.

[Sleeprider]

I was talking with JediMark last night after seeing this graph, because I was not aware that Sleepyhead was supporting the Weinmann Somnobalance.  Here are his comments:

I started implement a test for Weinmann data, but efforts got shelved because of the immense amount of work supporting the top two brands.

I meant to disable it because it wasn't ready for Alpha testing, but forgot.

I pointed to this thread and commented it seemed to be working fine.

Someone else finished it?
It was sort of reading when i left off it
They were the only company that offered documentation.
My problem was getting my hands on data or machine samples.

It's interesting to see the graphs displaying so well. Did you do any modifications to the program, or is this the current functionality?

[DeepBreathing]

I notice the chart differentiates between clear airway and obstructive hypopnea - fantastic!

[dark]

@Sleeprider:
Another member of Apnea Board added improved Weinmann Somnobalance support to SleepyHead code, and he sent me his version, but because, as he said ,"the disclaimer (this comes without any warranty - don't sue me) is null and void" in his country, he is still in the process of releasing the code. I hope the modifications will be merged into official SleepyHead code base soon.

[Sleeprider]

Not a problem, and JediMark is fine with it. I would like to have the code to pass along to Mark. We can also discuss this in the Sleepyhead Support forum. This is an open-source software, and this progress can simply be added to the upcoming revisions to include the Philips AutoSV Advanced. It's great that this has been done, and all I'm asking is that we share it with the author. You may contact me by PM or email if you prefer.

[TBMx]

If you have auto-Start / Stop activated: just deactivate it ... usually one wakes up (completely) if it keeps on blowing^^

If it would be me, I would turn off SoftPAP (the exhale pressure relief) and see how that goes regarding your central events ... 5cmH20 and SoftPAP gets you DEEP in the "unsure" range regarding obstructive / central differentiation.

[dark]

@TBMx:
Thanks! I'll try to turn of off Auto-Start/Stop and SoftPAP. With those options on, the results on Pmin 4 hPa, 5 hPa and 6 hPa were almost the same.

@Sleeprider:
I hope that the author of the code will commit his modifications to SleepyHead code base.