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remomueller

remomueller
Joined Oct 2014
Bio

Working to improve the lives of sleep apnea patients and researchers one commit at a time. @remomueller

Boston, MA

remomueller
Joined Oct 2014
Bio

Working to improve the lives of sleep apnea patients and researchers one commit at a time. @remomueller

Boston, MA

MyApnea is receiving its first update of the year next week that focuses on the following core aspects of the website. The forum provides a place for you to learn from the experiences of others, the research surveys provide you a place to learn about yourself by completing surveys and viewing reports, and the blog lets you learn from doctors and researchers by reading the articles.

Forum

The forum is getting a new look and a few small changes. First, we've improved the sign up flow for newcomers to the site who only wish to participate on the forum. We've also removed the automatic forum name generator, and instead provide a sample username new users can select at sign up. Second, in-app notifications are now sent to all subscribers to a forum thread. When you reply to a topic, you get subscribed to the thread, and will receive in-app notifications when someone else makes a comment on the thread. You can unsubscribe from a thread to disable these notifications. Also, for those interested, you will be able to auto-subscribe to all new threads in your settings to get in-app notifications if you wish (I know that's what I'll be doing!) Finally, we've also updated forum profile pages, and you can now personalize it by adding a short bio if you so wish.

Surveys

The MyApnea research surveys are also getting revamped. In short, you can expect to see improved survey feedback and will gain access to a personalized report after completing all the surveys that you can print out and bring to a doctor's visit. The surveys are there for you to learn more about yourself by being able to compare your results against MyApnea as a whole.

Articles

We've improved the display of the blog to be in line with the rest of the site and responses to blog posts will now also be shown on your dashboard. The blog will continue to get articles written by researchers, have patient stories, and other news posted there throughout the year. If you like a particular blog post, leave a comment! The team tries to push content for the type of articles we see reactions and feedback on, so if you liked the style and writing of a particular article, let the author know!

This will be the first release for this year, and will provide a foundation for us to continue to improve MyApnea for you. Thank you again for being part of MyApnea. This is your site to learn about sleep apnea, so keep asking questions. We're learning right alongside you!

Hi Drew, welcome to the site! The team here could put together a list of common abbreviations that we can link for newcomers to the site. Oftentimes, the short-hand helps facilitate discussion due to the lengthiness of many of the definitions. I'm happy to start a list here and we can eventually have it moved into a FAQ if that is helpful. Also, others feel free to contribute definitions. Thanks!

  • AHI: Apnea Hypopnea Index. This is a measure of the number of apneas and hypopneas you have over the course of a night divided by the number of hours slept. There are a number of different indices for this, that change based on what's included in the calculation, here's an example: https://sleepdata.org/datasets/shhs/variables/ahi_a0h3. The following article also has a brief explanation of this: What is Sleep Apnea?

  • CSA: Central Sleep Apnea, not to be confused with Complex Sleep Apnea. Central sleep apnea (CSA) is related to abnormalities in how the brain senses and responds to changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide while breathing. Learn more

  • CSR: Cheyne-Stokes respiration. Here's a fairly technical explanation: Cheyne-Stokes respiration with central sleep apnea (CSR-CSA) is a form of periodic breathing, commonly observed in patients with heart failure (HF), in which central apneas alternate with hyperpneas that have a waxing-waning pattern of tidal volume, PubMed. Also, here's a great explanation by @DanM.

  • OSA: Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common type of sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea happens when the throat closes frequently while sleeping. The nightly breathing cessations are due to the airway becoming “obstructed”. Learn more

Let me know if you want better clarifications of any of these.