How to Use Your ResMed AirSense 10

I'm the clinical manager for active health care, today we're going to go over the new ResMed AirSense 10, this is the bag, open the zipper in the pocket, here you do have reference manuals that I would refer you to, this manual is a very quick reference guide, that goes over some of the things that we're going to discuss today, very easy to use.

In your bag you have the humidifier Bowl, the unit itself, your power cord, and your power supply, and your tubing power cord, of course, needs to go into an electrical outlet, it fits into the power supply, and on the back of the unit your power supply plugs in there, the tubing is soft on both ends, so either end will fit on to your outlet, where you just put it on so that it fits snugly, when you go to pull your tubing off, use that rubber adapter to pull it off, and on this side your humidifier bowl is going to fit into, here you have heater plates on the bowl, and in the unit that is going to get warm and not hot, and this is what provides the humidity for you, the humidifier Bowl simply slides in.

When you go to remove it, to fill it with water or to clean it, you press the thumb tab and just pull the bowl out of your humidifier, I will go over how to set your humidifier on this side, but your humidifier bowl again you need to use distilled water in your bowl, the tab pulls open, and you fill the bowl with distilled water up to that matches line, and then you would just close it and put it back into your unit, now when you are traveling or move your machine, you need to make sure that your bowl is empty or out of your machine, because you do not want water to get up in the unit, your unit comes with a two-year warranty but not against water damage.

Now there is care and cleaning associated with your humidifier, you will be getting some more detailed instructions about cleaning your humidifier, but basically once a week you need to open the humidifier bowl and wash both pieces with a warm soapy solution, something mild that doesn't have antibacterial or bleach, wash it really well, you may need to scrub it a little bit, rinse it, replace the distilled water back into your bowl, and put it back into your unit, now once a month you need to soak your humidifier bowl in a 1 to 1 white vinegar and water solution, just fill a basin with the 1 to 1 white vinegar water solution, open your bowl, place the whole thing in the basin of the white vinegar mixture, and let it soak for 30 minutes, that will take away any residue and kill anything that might be growing in it your tubing, also needs to be washed once a week in that same mild soap solution, you can just make a basin of the mild soap solution, swish your tubing around in there, swish it back and forth, rinse it really well, shake it out, and then hang it to air, dry your humidifier, ball will come completely apart for additional cleaning if you would like, it does take a little bit of effort, however, open the lid as normal on one side of the lid, pull out on that hinge and then split the other hinge out on the other side.

There is a rubber seal that comes all the way out, when you replace the rubber seal, put it into place, and then press down on the round plastic to make sure that it is seated all the way around, to replace your lid, slip the hint in on one side, at an angle come over to the other side, pull out slightly, so that the hinge slips into that port, and then close your lid as normal, we're going to assume that we have distilled water in our humidifier bowl up to the max line, and I'm going to place the bowl into the unit slides in.

Now on the unit itself on the top is your start/stop button, you would just simply press it once, to start it press it again, to stop your unit, most of the time your window here is going to be dark, but if you depress that dial there, it will show you that you have two options, at the top my options and down at the bottom your sleep report, my options goes over some of the features, that allow your therapy to be more comfortable for you, to access these options you simply depress that dial, and you come up with a whole menu, the first item is ramp time, your sleep specialist will set this for you, but basically ramp time is a comfort feature that allows the machine to start out at a lower pressure, and over a period of time it will gently automatically ramp you up to your prescribed pressure.

This again is a comfort feature that allows you to just relax and start falling asleep in the humidity level, now this is something that you will need to change yourself throughout the year, it's going to vary depending on what the environments doing outside, what your home environment is doing, and just the comfort that you feel when you're breathing on your therapy. Now the humidifier has a setting from 0 to 8, right now I have it set on 4, and that's where you should start, but if you wake up and you feel dry or stuffy or your nose is burning, you need to go into my options, choose humidity level, press that dial, and it gives you the option of increasing the humidity level, I suggest that you do it just in increments of 1 to start with, when you get to where you want to be, you press that dial again, and you can see it saved your change, now likewise, if you wake up and you have a lot of water in your tubing, you will need to decrease that setting, so you would press the dial again choose the number that you want, press the dial and it saves your change pressure.

Relief is another comfort feature, that is functional while you're in the ramp time period, and basically the Machine automatically drops the pressure a little bit as you blow your air out, and it just makes it easier to breathe on, again just a comfort feature that allows you to relax and fall asleep more quickly.

Smart Start will allow the machine to start automatically when you put your mask on, please refer to your manual or your sleep specialist for more information, if this is a choice that you would like to use under mask, there are basically three types of masks, you have a pillow mask, a nasal mask, and a full face mask, if you change the type of mask that you have from what was originally given to you, you will need to go into my options and change that, so once you have this highlighted, you press the dial, and it gives you the option of choosing a pillow, a full face or a nasal mask, you choose the option that you want, and you see it changes it to pillows.

On the mask fit feature you just press this dial, now I'm going to occlude this back here to simulate you having your mask on, but once you have mask fit highlighted, you press the dial and it's going to tell you if your mask fit is good or if you need to adjust it, you adjust your mask and then you get the smiling face run warm up, this is another comfort feature that a lot of people like, to use in the winter time this feature will allow the heater plates to start warming before you actually turn your machine on, so that the air doesn't feel so cold, when you first start out to choose this feature, you simply highlight run warm up, press the dial, and it's going to show you that it's preheating your heater plates.

Here airplane mode is just a mode you would use if you're traveling by air and you want to use your machine while you're flying, it just makes it conform to FAA regulations, just gives you information about the software.

To get back to the original screen, you can either highlight home and press the dial or you can press this home button down at the bottom, now on the sleep report this is options where you can look at how you're doing with your therapy, how your mask is fitting, how many hours you're using it, and that sort of thing, I would refer you to your manual for this section or your sleep specialist will be able to help you with this as well.