Can Zeo detect instances of sleep apnea?
Q: I suffer from mild sleep apnea but recently another family member, who had been diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea, died in their sleep. I remembered the Zeo and wondered if it could recognize an instance of sleep apnea, thus allowing a sleep partner a chance to intervene.
A: I’m sorry for your loss, and understand the curiosity behind Zeo’s monitoring abilities. However, Zeo cannot track sleep apnea reliably, due to the fact that it was not designed to track or monitor medical related issues. In addition, there are a number of other bodily signals that need to be tracked in order to correctly monitor any sleep disorders, such as oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and breathing–and Zeo only monitors brain-based sleep phases.While Zeo does measures sleep phases and awakenings, it only focuses on awakenings that last at least 2 minutes. These awakenings are further compiled and cross-checked for a 5 minute marker to be labeled as “awake.”
Awakenings from sleep apnea, on the other hand, are sometimes called micro-arousals, since they last only a second or two. Since Zeo was not built to pay attention to these awakenings, it cannot be used to accurately monitor this common sleep apnea feature.
In addition, there are a number of other bodily signals that need to be tracked in order to correctly monitor any sleep disorders, such as oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and breathing. Again, Zeo is only paying attention to sleep stage information in the brain and not any of these other bodily signals that often indicate a sleep disorder such as apnea. For more information, watch this presentation from Steve Fábregas, our resident Sleep Researcher here.
If you or someone you know is diagnosed with sleep apnea, the best approach is to follow your doctor’s advice for home monitoring.
If any readers here have not been diagnosed with sleep apnea, but have noticed symptoms such as loud pervasive snoring and always feeling tired during the day, you can check your potential risk of sleep apnea here
Related Questions
- Could positional therapy help one deal with sleep apnea?
- How does Zeo compare to traditional sleep tracking methods like PSG?
- How does Zeo score sleep stages less than 2 minutes long?
- Is is possible to have more awakenings than you remember?
- What kinds of brain activity can Zeo measure?
Still have questions? Ask yours here
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