StarMed CaStar – Hood for CPAP Therapy

I saw an interesting CPAP hood on Youtube today. Unfortunately, I’m skeptical of the usefulness of this hood. I would not want to wear this mask for a number of reasons. Follow along as I point out some unfortunate problems with this hood as a mask-alternative. My first impression, watching the “mission specialists” get him suited up is that he’s an astronaut. Scratchy radio: “Houston, we have a problem…”

Reasons why this mask looks like a fail…

  • This guy is sitting up in bed for the demonstration. I suspect this hood would not be comfortable lying down on the back, and impossible on the belly.
  • Two-inch hoses under the arms? Wake-trigger City…
  • Nobody wants to sleep with their face, neck or scalp touching vinyl plastic. That’s what is likely to happen as soon as your head nods – and immediately when prone. You’d have to wear some kind of stocking cap or light knit cotton balaclava to reduce that sticky plastic feeling or put some kind of pillow inside the hood.
  • There’s also that silicon neck ring… It’s bad enough to have silicon surrounding your mouth and/or nose. But around the entire neck? I’m not convinced this might not be worse.
  • The plastic ring at the bottom of the cloche is not shaped like a yolk over the shoulders. That’s going to end up digging in somewhere during the night.
  • The necessity for ear plugs suggests that this will be uncomfortable on the ears without something to keep your ears from popping all night long. With most any other mask, there is no pressure on ear drums. I suspect at any pressure above 12cm where you keep your mouth and palate closed temporarily, even with ear plugs, you’re going to experience an uncomfortable and possibly painful push on the ear drums. No thank you.
  • It’s marked “disposable”. I don’t like products that are non-reuseable.
  • Most people don’t have two assistants to help them put on their masks at night. This CPAP alternative comes across as only for people who have buckets of money and aren’t in need of health insurance.
  • I doubt this system would be very useful for pressures above seventeen.
  • People with extreme bilevel settings would end up “neck farting” instead of “face farting”, especially around the back of the neck when sitting upright and around the clavicles when prone.
  • If the room is cold, heated humid air inside the cloche is going to cause rainout. Precipitating water is going to drip onto the user, down the user’s face, neck and shoulders, causing yet another wake trigger, because those rain drops are going to be cold.
  • It’s very big and looks like a space helmet. No, appearance isn’t as important as a good night’s sleep, but a successful sleep mask is going to deliver that. I doubt this device will.

Reasons why this hood could be useful

  • For people who are not allowed to lie prone in intensive care, have no neck or shoulder injuries and need cpap.
  • People who have just had sinus or oral surgery who require CPAP but cannot wear a mask due to bandages, etc.
  • As a temporary make-due during periods when all other conventional masks won’t work.
  • As I think of more, or as people comment, I’ll add them here.

This mask is riddles with wake triggers. I’m really not sure how this could be useful in any situation other than the most unusual hospital setting.

The guy demonstrating this CPAP hood is behaving like a docile patient. It sort of adds to the clinic-in-space feel this video implies. Everyone seems to be moving in slow motion. Most CPAPer’s are pretty in-your-face, and most would probably not happy with this setup at home.

StarMed CAStar CPAP Hood

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