OA's less than 10 secs.

[tigrpal]

I'm using sleepyhead software. Under the events tab it gives the time of each event and then a number in parentheses. Is the number in parentheses the length of time in seconds? But my real question is this - if that number is time in seconds then it is flagging events that are less than 10 seconds. I've had some OA's that are 7 secs long. But I thought apneas had to be 10 secs or longer. Why are those short events flagged? It seems to be OA's and CA's. Hypopneas are all more than 10. Should I ignore those shorter than 10?

[Pugsy]

Okay, here's the deal. Respironics machines don't flag the duration of the event like ResMed machines flag them.
Mark said that these numbers for the Respironics users are actually "markers" whatever that means and not really, truly duration of events when reported by Respironics machines. I asked him the very same question myself.

So I went and zoomed in on a bunch of different events from those with 7 or 8 in the parenthesis and they appeared to barely make it to 10 seconds but it is really hard to see the beginning and ending of an event when we zoom in close enough to count seconds. I have looked at some events that showed 45 in the parenthesis and they were darn close to 45 seconds when I counted each second. I probably studied well over a 100 various examples. My conclusion..the "markers" are real close to event duration if one wants to take the time to count seconds. It is going to be within 2 or 3 seconds for the most part. It is close enough to event duration that I am satisfied. SH doesn't flag the event...Respironics machine flags the event and SH reports it...so SH doesn't look at the flow and count seconds.

I think it is so close to being event duration that for our purposes it is acceptable say it is very, very close to event duration and I am good with it. The 7 to 9 that I see in parenthesis just usually means that I had a 10 second event...go zoom in real close and you can see what I mean and then go look at a longer event.

[tigrpal]

Ok. Thanks. I zoomed in on one that had a (9) but it was close to 12 seconds long. Interesting.

[-tim]

All machines count "Events". They record them differently. Some record in the data stream "pressure 3, 3.2, 3.5, apena even for 20 seconds, 3.8, 4.0" and others record "pressure 3, 3.2, 3.5, 0, 0 ... 0, 3.8, 4.0"

The first might be described as a "flagged event" and the second wouldn't be.

[ChicagoGranny]

Ok. Thanks. I zoomed in on one that had a (9) but it was close to 12 seconds long. Interesting.

Much closer than government financial planning.