Before I invest money in a wearable device, I thought I’d check to see others’ experiences with tracking and monitoring oxygen saturation, blood pressure, heart rate, respiration’s, etc. My mother has CHF and is constantly clipping on her pulse oximeter especially at night when she awakes with shortness of breath.
Also mention the apnea episodes.
I'm curious though if her condition at only 76 is such that it merits palliative care. Did one of her doctors suggest this?
What is the probkem with mom using her O2 meter? Have you considered just leaving it on at night?
She needs help with many tasks now as she gets easily winded. She has definitely had more anxiety since the stroke and has begun taking a low dose of Ativan for anxiety. Most concerning to her and me is that upon falling asleep, she wakes up gasping for air and then has anxiety about going back to sleep again. During these episodes, her oxygen saturations are remaining mostly in the high 90s, but she has become obsessed with checking it with the oximeter.
Since her stroke, I’ve been sleeping in her bedroom, and I can hear her having apnea episodes where she stops breathing for a few seconds and then wakes up gasping. Last week, we began working with a palliative care team, and I’m planning to request a sleep study for her. I would also like to have oxygen prescribed as it seems to me that having supplemental oxygen would make her more comfortable and calm her more quickly.
I questioned the breathing episodes both in the ICU and the rehab hospital, but they were hyper focused on her brain and the stroke. Since she has been home with us, and I’m sleeping in her room, it is becoming more and more concerning to me.
She sleeps with the head of her bed elevated and sleeps on her left side.
Thanks for reading.
My mom was quite literally driving us crazy with her obsession about her blood pressure. Took it many times a day, called us with the results, etc.
Once we got her into an Independent Living facility and started her seeing a geriatrician, he realized that, while she had a bp issue, her out of control anxiety was making it worse. The geriatric psychiatrist he referred her to treated the anxiety AND got the underlying cognitve decline that was causing it out in the open.
I guess what I'm saying is that you may need to dig a bit deeper.
I am 67 and I find my Garmin V to be difficult to manage at times--I mostly use it to count steps, keep track of my workouts and heart rate.
When it starts telling me to get up and move, meditate or do something else, I can't figure out how to get it to stop doing that, lol.