Circadiance Blog

Using CPAP during a public health emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic means navigating potential infection risks posed through a process called AGP or aerosol generating procedure, of which CPAP is an example. To this end, we have compiled the most effective approaches that address the three scenarios of concern that are most often voiced by patients during the pandemic.

Side effects of living with CPAP can include skin irritation, nose or mouth dryness, insomnia, aerophagia, claustrophobia, and altered facial anatomy growth in children. Most of these are common problems that can be prevented by making the right choice of mask and keeping up with your follow up visits both to your provider and for follow up titration studies.

You’ve already beaten the odds. By completing your sleep apnea studies and successfully starting constant positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, you have achieved what the undiagnosed 80% of sleep apneics, and the 50% of those remaining who can’t comply with treatment, have not: you’re in the top 10% of CPAP compliance!¹

In a previous blog, we traced the roots of sleep medicine discoveries which serve as a basis for the future of the diagnosis and treatment for sleep disorders. We mapped the landscape of subspecialties that have developed the interdisciplinary field, and highlighted the discoveries made in each. This week we will describe the most promising trends for the future.

Sleep Medicine is a broadly integrative field covering much of the human body and mind including the pulmonary, endocrine, respiratory, muscular and nervous systems. This means that many specialties make up sleep medicine, including...

David Letterman’s ‘Top Ten List’ was a comedy mainstay in my household growing up. But The Late Show aired too late so I watched the VCR recordings the next day. Dave’s humorous review of the topic of the day in a countdown has always been a format for maximum impact. 10 has just the right amount of depth and conciseness although the round numbered list has been around for some time (i.e., The Ten Commandments). I would, however, argue that Dave made the Top Ten List what it is today in our modern lexicon. You can not go anywhere without encountering a top ten from recipes on YouTube to football power rankings. Maybe it’s because they’re so easy to write—anyone can come up with one.

It's Sleep Technologist Appreciation Week and Respiratory Care Week! That means it's time to share appreciation for RT and sleep tech healthcare heroes around the world and especially those who have helped us individually. For today's blog, we decided to show our appreciation by giving techs and RTs in the care and management of patients with sleep apnea a resource center to promote patient compliance with CPAP treatment!

Standard care for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is providing a CPAP box, hose, mask and some basic education. This is expected to jump start the gold standard treatment of CPAP therapy for a lifetime. The problem with this “one-size fits all” approach is that it mirrors interventions for an acute illness (e.g., prescribing a cast followed by physical therapy education for a broken bone), which is characterized by abrupt or rapid onset, limited duration, and a single cause (usually). But OSA is a chronic illness characterized by gradual onset of lengthy or indefinite duration, multivariate causation (which can change over time), and a focus on functional status rather than individual diagnoses; moreover, cure is unlikely and long-term management of symptoms and disease consequences necessitated a “long-view” of treatment.

Positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy is the gold standard and most widely used treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Since the commercial appearance of the device in 1985, it has basically consisted of a box with a fan in it delivering room air to the lungs through a mask on the face. But if you take a closer look, the mechanisms by which it acts on a patient is rather dramatic and the subject of this edition of the Circadiance blog

Personalized risk estimates have little bearing on reality. The best example of this is the level of safety we feel driving versus flying—though cars are many times more dangerous than airplanes. What it comes down to is the perception of control: we get to operate our own SUVs, but we leave flying up to the ‘friendly skies’.