RichM,
I understand your concern about the saftey issue as well, especially having working for years in a clinical setting. There will be no walkins. All of my patients will be MD referred or at the least go through a consultation with my board certified sleep physician. As for your question about how the test will be monitored, I do not believe in remote monitoring. I feel that quality patient care must involve the ability to physically interact with my patient. Having said that and without giving away too much, let me also say there are ways to perform these studies without the tech in your living room and still have it be fully attended. I hope I have peaked your interest and I truly appreciate your responses. Keep an eye on this field as there will be some interesting changes in the future.

Rich, I understand your line of thought with your response to my poll, but I have edited the question to clarify some things that may have been misunderstood by my lack of detail when first posting. I have been a professional in the sleep field for over a decade and have developed a process which provides all of the same quality and patient care of a lab study. (by this I mean the attending tech can physically make interventions throughout the study). The home set up can be easily done...trust me, I know. The sleep facility can be brought to you instead of the other way around without sacrificing quality believe it or not. I'm happy to hear that you are a successful and happy PAP user and would only ask that you rereveiw the question and consider the possibilty. Home testing will be the future of sleep medicine. Thanks.

Hi Rich,

I don't have any experience with these types of machines. You might try Judy as I think she is on one.

Carol

Rich, sorry about the email situation--trying to get that resolved. Please send me a mailing address to sleepguy@comcast.net and I would be happy to get you a sample set out in the mail.

Bret

It's not the mask. Something's wrong.You've mentioned Central Sleep Apnea and a brain injury. A BiPAP may not be the right type of device for you. You may need one of the newest devices out there - an Auto-Servo Ventilator. Read up on the BiPAP ASV or the VPAP AdaptSV and then talk to your doctor. If he doesn't know about these products, find another doctor.

41 liters/minute can be good or bad. It all depends on the pressure. Do you know your IPAP and EPAP pressures? Do you know your diagnostic AHI? 61.9 is a very high AHI while on PAP therapy. You need to have a qualified person look into what's going on.

How are things going Rich?

Was you able to get Cheryl fixed up?

How is your treatment going?

I hope you are doing great and getting a good nights sleep!!

Probably to keep us coming to the DMEs so they can charge insurance for services.

I know if you order from cpap.com they leave all the info in the box and you are given the set up manuals.

Of course I guess there is a strong probability that people that don't have a clue would mess with their pressure and may end up causing centrals. Or turn it down so low that they are still having the majority of their apneas and not have a clue as to why.

If those links I sent do not work please let me know and I will try to post the info.

Here should be link to the providers guide to the machine.

http://kd1ca.net:82/cpap/manuals/Respironics/ProviderGuideRemstarProMSeries.pdf

This site has most of the provider manuals.
http://kd1ca.net:82/cpap/manuals/

Hope this helps!!

I will get with you tomorrow to give you the info -- I am getting ready for bed now and I won't forget to do it tomorrow.

Rich I read the info on Cheryl and you offering her a machine. Which machine is it? I am able to provide how to change the settings of some of the machines if I know which one.

Thanks for the info, I will get back to my friend Gene with the info. I did not know you can get a copy of your full sleep study, I am going to see about getting my last one. They did a extended one on me this last time that included about 10-15 more leads

I have been told the reason that the VA is utilizing home testing is that for many of the hospitals have a backlog of patients and it may take months for one to actually be able to have the sleep study done. By doing home tests they are speeding up the process. I am unsure about the connection to Agent Orange and am interested if others have any data on this.

Rich M,

Glad you are here! You might post your question about the Agent Orange to our public Discussion forum, so that everyone (including Sleepy Carol) will have an opportunity to chime in. About the home test, they're actually becoming more common, and can be pretty reliable when used properly. Be sure to tell your friend to get a copy of his FULL sleep study and his prescription, if he gets one. That way we'll be able to help him out better.