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Aesthetic Hair Integration Miscellaneous » Unclassified. Alexander Hamilton Institute Governmental » Institutes. American Hellenic Institute Governmental » Institutes. Apnea—hypopnea index Miscellaneous » Unclassified. The AHI will be used to help choose the best treatment for you.
To interpret your AHI, your health care provider will consider the big picture: your baseline sleep study, anatomy, medications, change in health status, and other factors. If you have surgery or you use an oral appliance, you may need another test to make sure the treatment has been effective in lowering the AHI.
The basic principle is that the machine pushes out air at a steady pressure. It can also send out short bursts of extra pressure. If your airway is partly blocked, the CPAP can measure how much the flow of air slows down. The measurements of CPAP machines used at home aren't always accurate. If readings stay high without a good explanation, you may need a new sleep study. Modern CPAP machines track the number of breathing events occurring at your current pressure setting.
Each event means that you're waking up briefly or having a short-term drop in blood oxygen level. Using your CPAP will not necessarily prevent the sleep apnea entirely. It depends, in part, on the pressure set by your sleep specialist.
Imagine trying to inflate a long, floppy tube by blowing air into it. With too little air, the tube will not open. It will remain collapsed. If the pressure is set too low on your CPAP machine, your upper airway can still collapse. This could mean ongoing hypopnea or apnea events. Your symptoms could persist if your treatment doesn't go far enough. You can continue to have sleep apnea events and other breathing problems even when you're using the CPAP machine.
Newer machines can track those events and report them in an AHI. The results may be visible on the device, or you may be able to check them using an app or website. This information can provide you with information about how effective your treatment is. When the CPAP calculates an AHI, your equipment provider or physician can also download this data and create a plan to improve your treatment. If the AHI remains elevated, it is time to return to your board-certified sleep specialist for an assessment.
A board-certified sleep specialist is the best person to decide which CPAP setting will work for you. The sleep specialist will consider the average AHI and your treatment experience. Though anyone can adjust the settings, your healthcare provider should make this informed decision. When deciding how much pressure you need, keep your own anatomy in mind. If you have trouble adjusting to the treatment, lower pressure settings may make you more comfortable.
If the settings are too low, however, it may not work well enough to resolve the condition. If the device is turned up too high, it may cause central sleep apnea to occur. This is when your brain doesn't tell you to breathe during sleep. A CPAP device can be adjusted to correct for different types of issues, including:.
Different issues will need to be resolved in different ways. For example, the CPAP pressure may need to be turned up or down. Or the mask may need fitting or replacement. Causes of rising apnea-hypopnea index In this case, the woman in our example had AHIs fluctuating between , which was normal and still within a safe range. The three most common causes of mask leak are a poorly fitting mask, inadequate cleaning or mouth leak. Mouth leak is most common if you use a bilevel PAP machine or you tend to breathe through your mouth and are using nasal pillows or a nasal mask.
Here are some common fixes to each of these causes. But do talk to your doctor about ways to reduce these events so you can get the full benefit of your therapy.
So if you have, for example, an AHI of 5, that means you experience an average of 5 collapses per hour during the night. Instead, you should focus on reducing your average AHI over time.
While an AHI under 5 is ideal, any improvement is beneficial. Consider a person with severe sleep apnea that reduces their baseline AHI from apneas per hour down to only They would still qualify as having mild sleep apnea , but would also experience significant improvement in daytime sleepiness , blood pressure , and cardiovascular health! Your baseline AHI will be determined by a sleep study called polysomnography PSG , and then realistic expectations for an AHI you can achieve will be based on your treatment options.
CPAP pressure alone may not be enough to completely eliminate all apneas or hypopneas. Luckily, there are some easy ways to help reduce your AHI …. Sleeping on your back makes gravity work against your airways, pulling against your soft tissues, and raising your AHI. If you have positional sleep apnea , changing to a side-sleeping position will have a significant benefit!
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