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Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
#1
Question 
Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Hello I'm Quip! I have some perplexing questions about the timing sub-routines within SleepyHead or could the problem be the CPAP machine?

My computer equipment is an 2014 iMac computer running X10.10.5. I recently downloaded within the last 3 days Open GL SH with a release date of May 21, 2015. I got my SD Card reader from Supplier #1 for my PR System One CPAP 560.

Before I start explaining the perplexing situation to you all, I would like to tell you that to assure full compliance on my part, I have an app in my iPhone that logs what time my mask goes on my face with the blower going and when it turn off the CPAP machine. My CPAP timing app also charts for me how long the sleep cycle was with my CPAP machine used as prescribed. So, when I ran into this perplexing situation that affects compliance reporting, I decided to post in the software forum.

Here's the situation that I ran into. I'm perplexed about the data for October 2, as reported out from SleepyHead. With my own CPAP compliance time tracking for October 2, I charted 6 hours, 56 minutes. In the morning of October 3, I woke up early and pulled the SD card to put into SH which told me I had actually logged 5 hours, 29 minutes. Ok, there's a difference between CPAP log time numbers, I thought. I told myself that the error was actually on my part - because I'm the human in the equation. Put my SD card back into the CPAP machine and slept for more hours using my friend, the CPAP machine (before 12 noon). Now here comes the perplexing part: At about 3 pm on October 3, I pulled my SD Card to see all that great logged time (I built up in a 24 hours period) for October 2 and Sleepyhead tells me in read bold letters that I ONLY have 3 hours, 19 minutes using my CPAP machine in a prescribed manner and I'm NOT in compliance anymore. What's so perplexing about this is that at
5:50 am, when I had pulled my SD card the first time - it told me that I had 5 hours, 29 minutes of logged time. But, only after 12 PM mark passes SH reports that I have the non-compliance logged time.

Now that I have explained the perplexing situation to everyone. I am pondering several questions about this:
1. Could this be an error that is coming within Sleepyhead itself? Or
2. Could be rental CPAP machine from my DME be altering the data on the SD card, so I will fall below my 70% compliance and Medicare will fail to approve CPAP treatment for me?

JediMark, I just want you to know if you ever read this post that I love Sleepyhead with all of my heart and that I love to have my CPAP data all laid out for me in a simple fashion. I also use SleepMapper and you can't compare the SH and SleepMapper really! SleepyHead is a full service CPAP program with a whole of great features!

This is my very first post to your lovely Apnea Board too.

Thanks for any help you can offer me. Thanks

Quip




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#2
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
G'day Quip, welcome to Apnea Board.

A couple of things come to mind...

First, the CPAP "day" starts at 12 noon and the clock resets. From what I understand, though, your sleep was all before 12 o'clock.

Second, the time on your machine is set at the factory to UCT (Greenwich Meant Time) and is not adjustable by the user. Sleepyhead then applies an adjustment based on your local time zone as read from your computer (as I understand it). So if the clock in your machine has drifted and / or your computer time is wrong, there will be an error.

Third, I don't think the medical mafia are sufficiently well organised to use software to mess up your compliance. Though I would have said the same thing about a certain car company a few weeks ago....

To get a better handle on this, what are the times shown on the actual SleepyHead charts, as opposed to the welcome screen? It will also be interesting to see if the three hours gets added to tonight's sleep time.

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#3
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
G'Day DeepBreathing, thank you for your warm welcome to the Apnea Board!

First of all, I really want to thank you for explaining to me about the UCT and the CPAP machines. That makes sense that all the CPAP machines would be set to the UCT, instead of the individual time zones where they are manufactured in. So, what I now have to do is use UCT for all of my own compliance charting, then? I can easily get UCT through the web site Time and Date.

Secondly, as it's early morning (where I am in the world) and I just woke up from a sleep period with my CPAP . . . I put my most recent sleep data into Sleepyhead, but not SleepMapper yet. There is a change in my usage stats in the overview screen for October 2! SH is now reporting that I logged 5.28 hours with my CPAP on October 2. Something to interestedly note: SleepMapper is reporting that 6.7 hours logged with my CPAP machine for October 2. SleepMapper's data report is very much closer to my own compliance charting data. Very interesting indeed.

Any thoughts on why Sleepyhead would on October 3 tell me that I was not compliant and then when I introduce new sleep data on October 4 would all a sudden tell me that I'm in compliance again for October 2? Also, if you can offer me any insight why SleepMapper is adequately reporting my logged time with my CPAP machine? At this point in time, I'm rather confused. I'm glad that whatever is going on here inside Sleepyhead (or some other factor) turned out to be in my favor. But, to say the least, I am still very confused on what's going on here.

Any insights?


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#4
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Sleepyhead is not the official software and it has a few bugs. If the numbers don't make sense, just ignore them. The numbers that matter are in the official Encore reports, which should match the ones produced by Sleep Mapper.

(10-04-2015, 05:04 AM)DeepBreathing Wrote: First, the CPAP "day" starts at 12 noon and the clock resets.

This doesn't apply to Philips Respironics machines. Sleepyhead sometimes has trouble deciding when the new day starts, and it can change its mind later.

I got some very strange stats from Sleepyhead when I was sick last month. It shows a 32 hour "day" starting at 9:21 PM Sept 9 and ending at 5:35 AM Sept 11, with 12 mask events and 19 hours 20 minutes of sleep. The next "day" started at 6:37 AM Sept 11 and ending at 9:04 AM Sept 11, with 2 hours 1 minute of sleep. Sleepyhead nonsensically shows me out of compliance for that "day," although the display on the machine shows 30 out of 30 days compliance.
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#5
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Hi Big_Dave,

I always remember in Sleepyhead when I go into the welcome screen that there is a big red line on the top of my screen with yellow little messages running all the time. Well, tonight I saw this message "This is a pre-release build and may at times show unstable behavior. This is for testing purposes only". Both of us, Big_Dave have experienced unstable behavior with Sleepyhead. You experienced this when you were sick and Sleepyhead was telling you that you presenting with a 32 hour 'day". I experienced the Sleepyhead instability too. I now have full understanding about what's going on with the fabulous Sleepyhead program! You see, I downloaded Sleepyhead a mere 4 days ago because I prefer my CPAP data laid out for me in a way that I can analyze it to my delight over the simplistic (but very valuable now) Sleep Mapper! When I had downloaded Sleepyhead, I was totally unaware that it was a CPAP data analyzing testing program. So, when Sleepyhead became unstable telling me at 5:30 am "you're compliant" and then 14 hours later, telling me "you're non-compliant" . .I sort of freaked out. That's why I posted in the software forum to get some resolution to the angst I was feeling.

I will, therefore knowing that Sleepyhead is a testing program, ignore the numbers that don't make sense to me (especially, if has to do with compliance numbers) and depend on my backup software of Sleep Mapper for time keeping of my compliance.

I want to thank both DeepBreathing and Big_Dave for imparting their wisdom to about Sleepyhead, UCT and Sleep Mapper to me! It's deeply appreciated by me. Thanks

Quip
Be the change that you wish to see in the world
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#6
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
You can miss several days and still be in compliance. The base that most insurance companies use is 4 or more hours per night at least 70% of the nights for the first 3 months. Assuming 30 days in a month, 70% of 90 is 63. You can miss the criteria up to 27 days before you are considered non-compliant. Your insurance may vary but that seems to be the normal.
Using FlashAir W-03 SD card in machine. You can download your data through wifi with FlashPAP or Sleep Master utilities.

I wanted to learn Binary so I enrolled in Binary 101. I seemed to have missed the first four courses. Big Grinnie

Stick it to the man, Download OSCAR and take back control of your data!

Thanks Ian. Like I didn't have enough Honey-Do projects to tackle. Mornincoffee
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#7
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Hi AlanE,

I really appreciate you giving me the specific compliance percentages during my 3-month trail period with CPAP therapy. This information that you have provided me helps out a lot. You see, as a totally new PAPer at this (I have only been on CPAP therapy for less than a month now), I have been experiencing high anxiety even if I have one day that is below the required 4-hours for compliance! So, when Sleepyhead is showing me three days of non-compliance, I was afraid that the three days of non-compliance would knock me out of my insurance company paying for my CPAP and my CPAP supplies. Understandably, a newbie to the CPAP world would think about such things. So, AlanE . . . by imparting your detailed information about how most insurance companies measure compliance for the 3-month period has helped me tremendously to calm my fears about "kicked out" of CPAP therapy from my insurance company. Thank you for your help, AlanE!

Thanks
Be the change that you wish to see in the world
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#8
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Not a problem. Another 'trick' that some people have used is to use the machine/mask for like an hour while watching TV or reading a book before you go to bed. That gets in that extra hour or more. Wink

Do you have a DME that provided the machine? They should have given you the compliance info also.
Using FlashAir W-03 SD card in machine. You can download your data through wifi with FlashPAP or Sleep Master utilities.

I wanted to learn Binary so I enrolled in Binary 101. I seemed to have missed the first four courses. Big Grinnie

Stick it to the man, Download OSCAR and take back control of your data!

Thanks Ian. Like I didn't have enough Honey-Do projects to tackle. Mornincoffee
Post Reply Post Reply
#9
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Hi AlanE,

Thanks for giving me that "trick" about watching TV or reading a good book before bed to gain extra time on the CPAP machine. That's a good one! I will try out for now on.

Yes, I got my CPAP machine from a DME. However, I'm not very happy with the service that my DME has provided me so far. I don't know if what I'm experiencing with my particular DME is the norm in the DME industry or not. I will share with my bad service experiences with my DME. First of all, my sleep clinic RT fitted me with a Simplus mask to put in with the RX to the DME company. On September 14 (when I got my CPAP equipment and mask), the DME RT didn't have a new Simplus mask with him! He provided me with a small (a size too small I found out later) Amara Gel mask that gave me panic attacks every time I put the thing on. Also, the Amara Gel mask was creating a bad pressure sore on the bridge of my nose. Another thing that the DME RT promised to do that he NEVER followed up on was to send my an owner's manual for my PR System One machine! I still to this day, don't know how to clean my tubes on my CPAP machine because I don't have an owner's manual to my friend: my CPAP machine. I have cleaned up to this point everything else connected to my machine. Like my mask and my humidifier chamber, but little else. I am not really sure how often I should be doing these cleanings of my CPAP equipment because I don't have the owner's manual. I was on the phone with them a lot trying to figure out the their resistance in sending me that owner's book. They kept on tap dancing around saying that they had to remove "the clinician's book" before sending it to me. Here it is on October 6 and I still don't know how to fully take care of my precious CPAP machine because of the DME not sending me that owners book. Another thing that the DME RT promised me was connect the DME MODEM to Sleep Mapper for me! I was on the phone with the DME every day for two weeks trying to get them to send me data for Sleep Mapper. So, basically I totally in the dark about how my CPAP therapy was doing until I got my head out and started to solve me own problems.

I am a solution oriented person. So, when I kept on hitting a brick wall on two of the issues I told you about above (the Amara Gel Mask and the lack of data due to no response from my DME), I started looking for my own solutions and becoming an empowered person again! I simply went to Supplier #1 web site to research a suitable mask replacement and found to my delight the Amara View mask! With the Amara View mask, I no longer experience panic attacks while doing CPAP therapy and I can strive for longer and longer time on the CPAP machine with it. The other problem that the DME was responding to was my need for data to support my therapy . . again, I went to Supplier #1 web site (after discovering that my CPAP machine did indeed have a SD card inside of it) and bought a card reader. Then from there - I came into Apnea Board to find the link to Sleepyhead. There. Who needs my non-responsive DME company anyways?

Question: is the experiences I just described to basically the norm with DME companies? Do DME companies not care that much about their patients? My current DME company gives me a bad taste in my mouth.

AlanE, sorry for the long-winded answer to your simple question. I just need to get that off my chest. It's been burning in me for some time and it''s about time I release it. I solved my own problems. Except the part of how to and how often to clean my CPAP equipment. That one goes beyond my scope. To answer your original question: No the DME didn't give me much compliance information. All the DME told me was "you need to use the CPAP machine a minimum of for 4-hours". But, nothing about the 70% over 3-months !

Have a wonderful day!
Be the change that you wish to see in the world
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#10
RE: Compliance clock within SH is giving me weird timings
Vent away - that's one of the reasons we are here. To support each other.

On the subject of cleaning. That has a subjective answer. Some say/do clean daily. Some clean weekly. Some not at all. Bug-eyed
I clean hose, mask, humidifier once a week. I do wipe the nose pillows daily though. Just a quick once over with some mask wipes I was able to get for 1 cent when I made a purchase from Supplier #1.

I can't say that your experience with the DME was a unique one. There are many 'horror' stories about dealing with DMEs. I have had good luck with mine. I don't call them as much so that could explain why. Coffee

You don't have to wait for them to send you a manual. Check here for one for your machine: http://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-pr...tup-manual

This is also a helpful thread: http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...Only-FILES
As is this one: http://www.apneaboard.com/adjust-cpap-pr...tup-manual

Good luck and if you can't find one I'm sure someone can help. Best chance would be to post that in the Main Apnea Board Forum area.

Alan
Using FlashAir W-03 SD card in machine. You can download your data through wifi with FlashPAP or Sleep Master utilities.

I wanted to learn Binary so I enrolled in Binary 101. I seemed to have missed the first four courses. Big Grinnie

Stick it to the man, Download OSCAR and take back control of your data!

Thanks Ian. Like I didn't have enough Honey-Do projects to tackle. Mornincoffee
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