CleveMed Blogs

It was before I became an employee here, that I first used CleveMed’s Crystal PSG software. I was a sleep tech working third shift at the time, and had very little tolerance for device-software-malfunctions in the wee hours of the morning. Understandably so, right? I thought their wireless PSG hardware was pretty cool; allowing the patient to move quite a bit freer than anything else I had used, but what was in it for me, the sleep tech? This blog is my answer to that question.

Interestingly enough, sometime later I joined CleveMed as their sleep application specialist. My input (as a sleep tech and a former customer), was considered an integral part of product development. More importantly, the customers’ input is routinely considered and often taken right into development. For the sleep tech who has never used Crystal PSG software before, I offer a brief overview in this blog. I also want to highlight a few features in Crystal PSG that I particularly appreciate, (hope other techs might benefit from this as well).

The Crystal PSG software offers a complete and user-intuitive software package for managing patient sleep data with data acquisition, scoring, and reporting. I like that it has a quick and easy system setup, as well as simple (as in convenient) patient and study management. Crystal PSG can be used with any of CleveMed’s PSG systems or SleepScout portable sleep monitor, so the same program and database can be used for multiple products.

In addition to the wireless capability, here’s my list of "what’s in it (Crystal PSG) for me the sleep tech"

I want to hear what my fellow-sleep-techs (who are probably reading this with your 6th cup of coffee) think of this, so write me back!

In order to diagnose Sleep Apnea or other sleep disorders, a patient must undergo a polysomnography (sleep study). This is typically done in a sleep lab, requiring the patient to spend the night in-lab, while the polysomnography (PSG) equipment records his/her physiological data. However, today with technological advancements a polysomnograpy can be performed at home and is called home sleep testing (HST).

Home Sleep Testing could prove beneficial in these ways:

• The patient self-administers the home sleep test, and is able to spend the night in the patient’s own bed in familiar surroundings (reducing first night effect).
• Home sleep testing can be especially advantageous to the home-bound, elderly, or those with chronic illness, who require specialized care such as a nurse or family member spending the night, expensive transportation costs, etc.
• The typical cost of a home sleep test is only a fraction of the cost of an in-lab sleep test, and typically yields similar results.

PS: You can download a complete sleep screening test to see if you or your patient are at risk for Sleep Apnea. Also, read more about CleveMed’s Home Sleep Monitors here.

CleveMed announces Sharma Penix as the winner of the post-Sleep 2010 SleepView Raffle! Sharma, from Dayton Ohio, is a Sleep Technician at the SouthView Sleep Disorder Center with the Kettering Health Network. Sharma will receive a SleepView Home Sleep Monitor, along with the Crystal PSG software for reviewing, scoring and creating sleep reports.

CleveMed wishes to thank every one who submitted entries for the SleepView Raffle! We appreciate your interest in the SleepView, and welcome your requests for more information.

About SleepView: It’s the smallest and lightest home sleep monitor with AASM recommended Type 3 channel set- and, ergonomically designed for patients to perform a self test for obstructive sleep apnea, right at home.

For most of us, when we think of carbon dioxide (CO2), we think of words like waste, danger, toxic, poison; but in reality CO₂ is not only a natural part of our existence but an essential one. We know we need to breathe oxygen to live. So many of us naturally assume that when we hold our breath, that it is the lack of oxygen that our body is reacting to and forcing us to breathe again. . . wrong. In reality, it is the accumulation of CO₂ that our body is reacting to and forcing us to breathe again, trying to reduce and remove the CO₂ from our lungs (You say: Ah ha, see, CO₂ is bad! Our body is fighting to get rid of it). Well, yes, too much of anything is a bad thing, even oxygen (Oxygen toxicity or oxygen poisoning, causes disorientation, breathing problems, and even seizures, but that’s not the point of this article). Back to CO₂, the needed concentrations of carbon dioxide we are talking about are well below the toxic levels, and most importantly without CO₂, you don’t have as much drive to breathe.

There are tens of millions of people with sleep apnea (that is, the failure to breathe while you sleep). Sleep apnea is typically further broken down into obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), where by the patient is trying to breath but air can’t get in due to an obstruction or collapse in the airway, and central sleep apnea (CSA), where by the patient just stops trying to breathe for short periods of time. The most prominent and successful treatment of OSA is using a constant positive airway pressure (CPAP) device or a variation there of. However some of these OSA patients do not get better, do not tolerate the CPAP, or even get worse. One reason is that a portion of the OSA population actually has a complex sleep apnea (CSA) condition that is masked by the OSA. In these cases the CPAP will prevent the obstructions, but then it becomes apparent that the patient is exhibiting CSA characteristics as well. The complex sleep apnea symptoms are unmasked or amplified because of a lack of respiratory drive due to insufficient levels of CO₂. Normally when we sleep, our CO₂ levels increase just slightly. Think about it, you are sleeping in a relatively stationary position creating a slight cloud of CO₂ around you. A CPAP device, however, reverses that effect since it is drawing air from an area a few feet away and pumping it into your airway. To add to that, the increased pressure and flow also acts to ‘blow off’ more of the CO₂ that is normally inside your lungs, so it is very conceivable that the CO₂ levels on CPAP can be even lower than normal (as opposed to slightly elevated in normal sleep). So this complex sleep apnea (CSA) population would appear to have a CO₂ ‘critical threshold’ right at that point between the CO₂ levels experienced with and without CPAP. There are multiple studies that have now shown that adding just a small amount of CO₂ actually treats these patients.

So yes, these patients do say, “give me CO₂ or give me bad sleep!”