How to use ZEO with sleep doc?

published by Joel Stanner on Tue, 02/08/2011 - 16:42
English

I've been going to a sleep doctor at a sleep center for about 1 year.  I've been diagnosed with mild/moderate sleep apnea during that time and now use a CPAP machine.  I've also used the Zeo for about 1/2 of that time.  I went in today for a consultation and brought some Zeo data in with me.  My doctor said he hadn't heard of Zeo and was pretty skeptical of the data.  Is there an easy way for me to convince him this data is worthwhile?  He did think the time to bed and time to rise data was somewhat useful and accurate.  He specifically asked me how Zeo worked, and I had to admit that I didn't know besides some radio waves sent from the headband.

 

Are there some other users examples of how they were able to succesfully use the Zeo data with their doctors?

Andrea Castonguay

Fri, 02/11/2011 - 07:11

While I can't speak for other users doctor-Zeo data relationships, I can at least help you out on the research & technology fronts.

Before we brought the product to market, we tested it with a number of sleep scientists.  We wanted to not only validate our technology–which, btw, was a new way to track sleep–but to compare it with current practices. 

The two biggest ways to measure sleep are polysomnography (a.k.a. PSG) and actigraphy.  PSG dectects brainwaves–and therefore can stage sleep–while actigraphy just relies on montion and can only tell you if you're awake or asleep. 

When we tested Zeo against both of these, we found that Zeo met the established gold standard criteria for sleep staging.  More importantly, all of these studies were presented to the larger sleep scientist community at the annual American Academy of Sleep Medicine's APSS meetings in 2008, 2009, and 2010. 

As a result, other sleep scientists and researchers started to use Zeo as a means of collecting data and conducting their own sleep research.  Christopher Drake at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detriot, MI did several studies with Zeo, and presented his findings at the 2010 APSS meeting as well. We even dive into our database from time to time to see if it stack up against earlier sleep studies and behavoirs. 

You can read about two IRB approved studies that we did on ZQ by age and gender and sleep by night of the week. 

In regards to how Zeo works, Ben@Zeo did a great post on this; feel free to print it out and share it with your physician or even email him the link.   

Joel Stanner

Fri, 02/11/2011 - 08:38

Thank you for the info.  My physician was telling me that he thought it probably worked with actigraphy (a word I didn't remember) and the motion detection, and therefore couldn't possbly be remotely accurate for the stages of sleep.  I gently dissagreed with him, but it's tough to debate someone who has Ph.D's in the field you're discussing, and I know how doctors dislike being presented with random data from unkown sources.  Hopefully he'll have the time to look through some of the info in your links and change his mind. 

I feel like using Zeo with a doctor in whatever capacity they feel comfortable with can only help to raise the bar on the quality of care they can provide.  As I said, he at least felt like the time I put the headband on and off was accurate for him to use, so next time maybe he'll look at it a little deeper.