Newbie with AirSense10 - autoset - what is Response?

[tubster1]

Hi all

RE Resmed Airsencse 10 Autoset

can anyone tell me what the advance setting under comfort means:

Response (options are standard or soft)

Nothing in the clinician manual about this.

Just started with this machine, first time with a CPAP machine. Coping fine, slightly sore skin/nostrils in the morning but otherwise been much better than I expected. It's coming up with 4.6 AHI last night, seal good, other figs: pressure 11, leak 5l/min, AHI 5,8, total AI 5.6, Central AI 3.8 ---- am I right in thinking these are respectable? Might they go lower over time, as I get used to all this? I was in the suspected severe category when they did a blood oxygen home test, they didn't bother with a full sleep study it was so obvious I had sleep apnea.

Started out with sleepyhead (wow, thank you all concerned) and starting to figure it all out. A couple of times the machine has gone up to 15 pressure to deal with successive obstructive apneas; machine has been set to range 4-15. But central AIs are as significant.
I'm a bit nervous of playing with settings, but should I try putting it up a bit, and if so what to? 16? 18? How will I know/tell if this is a retrograde step?

Any advice appreciated. Second day definitely feeling more alert, but still getting tired in evening, early days and all that.

Tubster

[Pugsy]

Yes those numbers are respectable.
The bulk of your AHI is central and more pressure isn't going to fix the central part of things.
Don't know if you need more maximum or more minimum to deal with the obstructive side of that AHI but there's no urgent need to go fixing an obstructive AHI of 2.0 and that is what you have if you remove the central index from the AHI. Obstructive stuff would be the OAs and hyponeas.

I wouldn't change anything for a few days and just see what happens. Often when first starting out on this therapy we don't sleep so great with all this new stuff attached to us blowing air up our noses or into our mouths...and the machine sometimes will mistakenly flag awake/semi awake breathing irregularities by mistake. Our awake breathing will easily confuse the machine if it's very irregular.
Unless the results are a disaster I wouldn't go changing anything for a few nights. Your results aren't a disaster and your AHI of 2.0 (OA and hyponea) isn't bad enough to get concerned at this stage of things and the 3.8 Central we can't fix with more pressure anyway.

I need to do some poking around in my machine to see if I can figure out what the advanced settings under comfort called "response" means with the choices of soft or standard. I don't recall ever seeing that option mentioned anywhere and the clinical manual I have access to doesn't cover it either that I could find. I have an Air Curve 10 ...so I don't know if my machine will even have that choice since it doesn't have auto adjusting mode.
At first I thought maybe it was related to EPR which is a comfort feature...long time ago with EPR we had a choice fast or regular....I wonder if it is related to EPR??? I dunno for sure though.

[TangledHose]

Technological features


AutoSet Response mode
ResMed’s AutoSet algorithm now allows for additional customisation of therapy with the new AutoSet Response mode, which offers all the benefits of the enhanced AutoSet algorithm with gentler pressure increases for additional comfort.

For patients who are sensitive to faster changes in pressure during therapy, AutoSet Response can be set to either Standard or Soft. If set to soft, patients will receive gentler pressure rises during therapy.

Available in the AirSense 10 AutoSet and AirSense 10 AutoSet for Her devices.


-- it's similar, or maybe exactly the same as the "for her" algorithm found in the for her model.........in responding to flow limitations or apnea events the pressure increase is softer for those patients that are more sensitive to pressure increases.

[tubster1]

Thank you both for these great responses - tangledhose, this sounds like a useful feature, I'm waking up 2 or 3 times so might give it a go to see if it has any impact. I do think it is strange to think that any aspect of this is gender related, but to be fair the thought given to design of this equipment is very impressive, for medical equipment I was amazed that the Airsense is as attractive and ergonomic as possible to make people feel more comfortable with it all.
Pugsy, wise words and much appreciated. I'll give it some time as you say. I've got a review appointment in a month with the clinic, but It's good to know I can tinker with things a little, maybe it's a bit of control over a problem I've been powerless to deal with up to now. The central apneas are still a bit of mystery to me, it's like my brain is lazy or something, or maybe just used to only reacting to much bigger events. My wife says I'd stop breathing for 45-50 seconds before this equipment came on the scene, whether this was obstructive or central or perhaps both I don't know, I need to understand it a bit better. Either way, no doubt things have improved massively with the machine, and it's comforting to think that some of these might be connected to waking up and changing position. The strange thing so far (both days!) is that I'm apnea free of any kind for the first three to four hours, then it goes down hill (relatively) for the next 3 or 4 hours, I wonder if it's because I'm shifting to my back which I've always been told has been worse snoring-wise. Anyway, plenty of time to try and figure it out, I've had this for 20 years, two days of treatment and it's looking very positive