Rested has a service to help people figure out if they’re at risk for a disorder like sleep apnea, reports CNBC.
Andy Salamon, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, watched his father struggle with undiagnosed sleep apnea, which occurs when the airway gets blocked during sleep.
“It was years, and a lot of nudging from the family for him to do something,” Salamon said, in an exclusive interview with CNBC, announcing the launch of his new company Rested. “And then it took months to get help through a visit to the doctor, a referral to a specialist and lab tests before he could get treated.”
I read the article, and the idea of helping people find out if they are at risk of having OSA with the Rested program is great. It definitely would create more awareness of this potentially life threatening issue.
The only thing that concerns me is the fact that a lot of the treatment process would be done through remote contact with physicians and respiratory therapists.
I have been working in the sleep field for 17 years and I know from experience that fitting a mask remotely with a patient is not going to work. The PAP unit itself is usually not the problem. Most patients can tolerate their suggested PAP pressure, but if the mask does not fit well, and is not comfortable for them to sleep with, there is a high probability they won’t use their equipment, and will then not meet insurance compliance regulations for keeping the unit and end up having to give it back.
Remote options are great for the diagnostic part of OSA, and that is where I see “Rested” fitting in, but there still has to be some “hands-on” with these patients to help them get acclimated to their equipment (mask especially) and also some “hand-holding” to get everything going in the right direction for them in the first few weeks after receiving their equipment. I really don’t see this being something that can be done remotely.
Overall, I like the “Rested” concept, but I think that it will need to be tweaked “here and there” in some areas as it goes along.
Just my thoughts……