- G'day, everybody, Nick here again from CPAP reviews.
Today, I'm gonna be doing part one of a three part series
on the Phillips Dream Station.
Part one, we're gonna be looking at just basic setup
of the machine and a few of the features.
Part two, we're gonna be taking a little bit look
at the menu and then we'll be discussing
what the different bits and pieces mean in the menu.
And Part three, if you can be bothered watching
all three series, is going to be on the clinical menu
which is the next level up, so the advanced menu.
All right?
Let's talk about the machine.
So this is a new Dream Station from Philips Respironics,
it's taking over from their System 160 Series,
which was also a very good machine.
These machines are premium devices,
so they're right at the top end of the price scale
along with the ResMeds and the Fisher and Paykels.
They do have a lot of features in them
which does make therapy a little bit more enjoyable
and they also have a very user-friendly design,
which makes just your daily maintenance
and operating the machine very easy
and very enjoyable as well.
Like I said, part one we'll just take a look at the machine,
how to set it up and how to use it
and then I'll talk about a few of the features
and then we'll just go from there.
All right, so let's have a bit of a look in front us here.
This is the two parts of the machine that it comes with.
This part here is your pump section
and this part here is your humidification section.
You can buy this machine just with the pump
if you're someone who doesn't like humidification,
majority of their customers get it with humidification
and also the heated tube.
This is our heated tube system, 15 ml heated tube
that comes with it as well,
and then we also have our power supply.
Okay?
Just be aware that there is a big block of a power supply
which does add weight.
And then finally, we have our carry case.
It's a nice big carry case, lots of room,
pouch for your mask and your tubing,
little separator there for your power block, okay?
So just have a bit of a sneaky peek at that.
So first things first in terms of setting it up,
we're just gonna put the two pieces together
and to do that we basically just line them up
and just push in
(snapping) and you hear a nice click.
To take the two pieces apart, there is a button here,
a gray button on the front, all we do is press that in
and we can take the two pieces apart.
So we'll put them together for now, okay?
Next thing is we're gonna do is insert our power cord,
very simple, just nice big green port
matches up with the green.
So just click it in there like so and then lastly,
we're going to connect the tubing.
If you've got this heated tubing, which I recommend you get,
it's got one with little clips on it
that are gonna clip straight into the top here
and the other end is going to go into your mask.
If you're using this machine
without the humidification chamber, which it can do,
it's one of the features of these Philips machines,
you simply separate the device and you connect the tubing
to this part at the front here.
All right?
This makes the machine very portable and easy to use.
So if you're at home and you want to just use it
with humidification, you just have this beside the bed,
if you've gotta get up and go somewhere,
you want to travel and you want to travel nice and light,
you can just leave this whole section at home,
this humidification section, just take the pump section
and away you go, making the machine very light,
very portable but also at the same time,
you've got that humidification for the majority of the time
if you need it.
So let's just connect up that tubing again.
Once we've set up that, it's about where to place
the actual machine.
Where you want to place it is somewhere that's within reach,
you also want it lower than the level
that you're sleeping at and also off the ground,
I know that's a little bit to take in
but if you shop around, you can basically get those
two level bedside tables and that middle shelf
is a perfect spot for it.
One thing to be aware is you want to make sure
that there's a bit of room for air to get into the filter,
you don't want the filter, I'll show you where
that filter is, it's just in the side here.
Might just put this stuff on the floor.
So it's just in the side here.
So you just want to make sure wherever you've got
you've got a bit of space between the side of the machine,
that way you get a nice airflow into the machine
and the machine's not gonna get too hot.
But you absolutely don't want to put it on the floor,
it's obviously very dusty down on the floor
but also you're putting it onto carpet,
which is generally flammable, so you want to keep it
off the floor just in case there is some sort of electrical
fault or something like that.
It's recommended, keep it off the floor
but below the level of your bed.
Once you've found a nice spot for it,
the next thing is filling up the water chamber.
To do so with this machine, it's really simple,
it's one of the features of the machine
in terms of just the usability of it,
but just a little latch on the top here
if we just pull that across the side,
this sort of pops up like so and the chamber
just presents itself, it just pops straight out of the top.
It's a nice big chamber, it's got a nice big, round
header plate on it but I love the fact
that it's just fully open at the front here, all right?
This makes it very easy to fill
but also makes it very easy to clean
and I'm sure a lot of you looking at this video now
know what a pain it can be to clean those humidification
chambers or even just fill 'em up,
they can be quite frustrating.
Clips and bits and pieces, this one pops out, done,
very easy to do.
We want to fill this with distilled water
and there is a max level at the front there,
I don't know if you can see it on the video there,
just fill it to the max level with distilled water
and we're gonna change that water daily, all right?
When it comes to washing the chamber,
you can wash it in the dishwasher on the top shelf
of the dishwasher, otherwise just use some diluted
dish washing liquid, some warm soapy water,
get a wet dishcloth and just get in there
and rinse it out, pretty straightforward, let it dry.
So once we've filled it up to the line
with our distilled water, we just place it back
in the thing, close the lid shut,
and we're pretty much ready to go.
So the next step is really just about connecting our mask
up to the tubing.
With this machine you can run what's called a mask fit
or mask check mode.
What that does is once you've connected the tubing
to your mask, you run this mode and the machine
will run through a various of pressures
to give you a green tick.
If you don't get a green tick, it means you need
a little bit of adjusting with your mask.
So you make a few adjustments, run the check again,
aim for that green tick, that way when you go to bed
at the nighttime, once the machine does start to ramp up
the pressure, you know that you've got your mask
safe and secure and that way you're not gonna get
a whole lot of mask leaks and things like that
that are gonna make therapy annoying
and probably wake you and your girlfriend
or your husband or whoever up in the night.
But that's pretty much how simple it is
to get this machine set up and ready to use.
Once you've got your mask on, you've done the check,
you can, with this machine, has an automatic on
automatic off function that you can setup,
so that means start breathing, machine will start up
and away it goes.
If you take your mask off, the machine will stop.
Automatic on, automatic off.
Or you can just hit this big power button on the front here
and away you go.
So that's your basic setup of the machine,
pretty easy, huh?
Now let's talk about some of the features of the machine.
I'll just jump over here to my computer
because I've got a few written down.
Number one's the user-friendly design of the machine.
So if we talk about user-friendly design,
it's basically how easy it is to operate
and how easy it is to access things like the humidification,
click on the tubing, everything is really basic,
it just works and that's something that you want it to do.
So the buttons are nice and big, the dials are really easy
to use and the menu system of it,
they use really good icons, it's a really good menu layout,
everything's quite easy to understand.
So when it comes to changing settings like maybe
you want to change the humidification settings
or you want to look at your dialer, everything is just
really simple to do.
So that's one of the features, other feature
is that they're quiet.
They really are whisper quiet machines, so the motors
are just beautiful, they don't create a lot of noise,
it's certainly brilliant in terms of that.
The heated humidification systems are brilliant in it,
the heated tube, which I recommend that you get,
is perfect, you do not get rain out which is annoying
especially when it comes to Winter.
Rain out's when you get that condensation
from the humidification, you get water splatting.
So grab yourself the heated tube one, that's definitely
what you want to get.
Another really good feature, Philips pioneered this,
which is the flex features of these machines.
They have what they call C flex or A flex,
they have a couple of different options there,
but basically what it is is called pressure relief.
So your C flex drops the pressure as you breathe out,
normally when you're breathing it's quite unnatural
to breathe against all that pressure that's coming in,
C flex drops the pressure as you exhale
making it much more easy to breathe against the therapy.
And A flex actually drops pressure at the end of inhalation,
so as you breathe, at the end of that, it drops it
and then it also drops it on your exhale as well
making it very natural.
So I recommend probably try both of them
but most people I think prefer the A flex,
it just really does make breathing with the therapy
far more enjoyable and for a lot of people
it can be the make or break.
We've got many patients that really,
in the beginning especially, they really struggle
exhaling against that air coming through
especially while their lungs are getting used to it.
So those flex features they pioneered, they're the masters,
they've got these algorithms that basically monitor
your breathing and learn how your breathing cycle
actually goes just to really fine tune those flex features.
So really cool.
I talked about that mask fit check before which is great,
you put your mask on, it runs through a series of pressures,
makes sure that your mask is secure.
It does have what we call a smart ramp feature
that you can setup as well.
Smart ramp means that the machine will basically stay
at a very low pressure when you're first getting off
to sleep until the machine determines that you need
more pressure.
So the machine basically monitors your breathing,
if your breathing starts to go bad, obviously you're asleep,
you're snoring, you're having sleep apnea,
that's when the machine will then increase the pressure.
Smart ramp, really smart and a really cool feature.
Or you can set it up just to have your standard ramp
which periodically increases the pressure over a series
of minutes but you've got those two options there.
But smart ramp I reckon you check that one out as well.
The machine data capabilities are pretty awesome.
You can get it with a cellular mode which costs a bit extra,
probably don't need to.
You can download an iPhone or an Android app
called Dream Mapper, which is a Philips app,
and that links up with the Bluetooth of the machine,
syncs all the data automatically.
I'll put the links to those sort of things
in the description of this video which you can check out.
But you got your Dream Mapper app, the screen also gives you
all the info in terms of your apnea hypopnea index,
your leak rates, your 90th percentile pressure,
all these things which we will discuss in step two
of this three part series.
So that's really great as well.
Downsides of this machine?
Price, it's not for those on a budget,
they're expensive machines.
Shop around you can maybe find them a bit cheaper
if you navigate through the big web out there.
Find them a bit cheaper but they're at the top end
of the cost curve when it comes to your CPAP machines
and double stuff like I talked about the VMC
and the DeVilbiss machines, they're under $1000,
these ones are double that, okay?
So they are a bit more money.
One more positive before I talk about another negative,
they are 12 volt machines, Philips, which is awesome
if you like camping or caravaning or boating
and you want to use this machine with a 12 volt source
like a battery or plug it into your car socket
or caravan socket, 12 volt, good.
Just need yourself a DC cable, they're about $60, easy.
What is another negative?
The block, the big power block but that's just
you gotta deal with that.
So this machine I think weighs about two kilos
but your block there weighs a fair bit as well,
so you've got to add that in if you are someone
that carries around a lot, you have to deal with that block.
But not too many negatives, a lot of positives,
is it a machine that I would buy?
Most definitely, really, really top end gear,
your Ferrari of the CPAP world.
They've got some really cool masks out, Philips, as well,
you've got your Dream Wear which is that revolutionary one
that connects the tubing at the top,
heaps of people given us great reviews on that one.
They've got the Amara View, which is your full face mask
that doesn't come up over your nose
and block out your eyes, so it just seals right here
but it's a full face mask, check out that one,
I'll put links in the description.
But yeah, check out the Dream Station,
it's definitely worth paying a visit and checking it out
at your clinic or online and reading up
on some of the features there.
Check out part two in the series comin' up,
just click up here, I'll put a link to it.
Also, you can subscribe to our channel
if you want to check out some more of our videos,
just click up here and just check out the description
for those links to Dream Mapper, where you can buy
the products, things like that, other useful information.
Thanks for watching, hope everything's going well
with your sleep and your therapy and see you in part two.
Cheers, bye.