Oximeter are devices that monitor and record patients' blood oxygen content.
They are a way to measure the occurence of sleep apnea events: as the patient stops breathing, the amount of oxygen in her blood stream decreases over time. A drop of 4% in oxygen level from the average is counted as an oxygen desaturation event, which is a good proxy for apnea or hypopnea event.
You might be familiar with the AHI index for Apnea Hypopnea Index which report the average number of event per hour during sleep. This is measured wearing a canula or other devices measuring the air resistance in the airways.
Oximeters reading allows to measure another index: the ODI for Oxygen Desaturation Index. ODI reports the average number of oxygen desaturation events per hour.
iNAP Lab + app is compatible with a number of oximeters available commercially. After the patient sleeps with iNAP while wearing the oximeter, data from both devices are uploaded automatically to the app in the morning using the bluetooth connection. A few minutes later all data a displayed on a report in the app, allowing patients and physicians to examine a rich set of data including:
- iNAP usage time
- iNAP seal time
- ODI
- sleep architecture (for some types of oximeters)
- heart rate over time
- duration of apnea events
Our engineers carefully selected several oximeters to pair with iNAP Lab + for the quality and accuracy of their data. Here's a non exhaustive list:
- Circul ring (by Bodymetrics)
- Fora O2 fingertip pulse oximeter (by Foreacare)
- TD 8255 fingertip pulse oximeter (by Taidoc)
- O2 ring (by Wellue)
- Fitbit (note: the oximeter reading is not as accurate as previous models, FitBit data are mostly used for sleep architecture information).