Reliability of home CPAP titration with different automatic CPAP devices

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>CPAP titration may be completed by automatic apparatus. However, differences in pressure behaviour could interfere with the reliability of pressure recommendations. Our objective was to compare pressure behaviour and effective pressure recommendations between three Automatic CPAP machines (Autoset Spirit, Remstar Auto, GK 420).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sixteen untreated obstructive sleep apnea patients were randomly allocated to one of the 3 tested machines for a one-week home titration trial in a crossover design with a 10 days washout period between trials.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The median pressure value was significantly lower with machine GK 420 (5.9 +/- 1.8 cm H₂O) than with the other devices both after one night and one week of CPAP titration (7.4 +/- 1.3 and 6.6 +/- 1.9 cm H₂O). The maximal pressure obtained over the one-week titration was significantly higher with Remstar Auto (12.6 +/- 2.4 cm H₂O, Mean +/- SD) than with the two other ones (10.9 +/- 1.0 and 11.0 +/- 2.4 cm H₂O). The variance in pressure recommendation significantly differed between the three machines after one night and between Autoset Spirit and the two other machines after 1 week.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Pressure behaviour and pressure recommendation significantly differ between Auto CPAP machines both after one night and one week of home titration.</p

Managing the impacts of drought: the role of cultural beliefs in small-scale farmers’ responses to drought in Gaza Province, southern Mozambique

Drought has had a harsh impact on small-scale farmers' agricultural activities, livestock production, and well-being, so that even droughts dating back to 1947 remain memorable. These memories, experiences, and knowledge of the impacts frame farmers' awareness of the need to respond to drought, and they therefore implement an array of responses collectively to tackle its causes, and individually to reduce its impacts. Farmers' collective responses, comprised of prayers or traditional rainmaking ceremonies, are directly framed by their enduring cultural beliefs of the causes of drought and appropriate responses to address them. Farmers’ individual responses involve dependence on help, activities which generate income or secure immediate food needs. Cultural beliefs indirectly influence these individual responses by determining the timing and order of their implementation because farmers usually implement first collective responses. Thus, farmers tend to implement short-term, reactive coping strategies, which are often insufficient to feed their large families. Although cultural beliefs do not necessarily help farmers to adapt to drought, the enduring collective responses bind farmers together in solidarity during times of drought, since they are driven by their common need of rainfall for agricultural activities. Thus, acting as a psychological support system to deal with the causes, maintain their livelihoods, recover from the hardship and survive. Therefore, we conclude that it is important to account for these direct and indirect influences of cultural beliefs as they may affect the level of engagement, endorsement and position that farmers will (consciously or unconsciously) attribute to the implementation of drought-related adaptation strategies