(12-02-2012, 12:41 PM)SuperSleeper Wrote: Now, with the advent of improved data-capable APAPs, along with PC software, many patients see no need for regular overnight sleep studies at all (other than their initial diagnostic study).... the old standard of "get a sleep study every 5 years" (for mainly titration purposes) is being taken over by patients armed with an APAP and PC software who can manage their own titration with these useful tools.
Again, I don't mean to argue that a good CPAP is better than a APAP. I will say, though, that in many cases this can also be accomplished with a good CPAP.
It's really the advent of data-capable machines that's driving the change in treatment culture.
And one more thing, often patients are deprived of proper medical care. Either they don't have the insurance or other means to pay for it, or the healthcare professionals available to them are ignorant of what data-capable machines have to offer. They are still operating in the dark ages where sleep studies are used for titration and dumb CPAP's are used for treatment. Well-informed patients with a data-capable CPAP, BiPAP or APAP can make their own adjustments to their pressure, assuming they suffer from simple OSA and there are no complicating factors.
I'm not advocating doing away with proper medical care. But when that care is simply insufficient I am advocating that patients extend it and that we take some responsibility for our own care.
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