Automated methods provide a ventilation sufficiency assessment to evaluate patient respiration. In some embodiments, a ventilation histogram maybe determined from a measure of patient respiratory flow. Based on the histogram or associated ventilation data, hypoventilation or hyperventilation occurrences may be detected. For example, a kurtosis index and/or skewness index may be calculated with the data associated with the ventilation histogram and may be evaluated as an indication of hypoventilation or hyperventilation. An assessment of the number of peaks and other features of the ventilation histogram, such as in the case of a bimodal ventilation histogram, may be implemented to detect an occurrence of ventilation insufficiency or sufficiency. The detection methodologies may be implemented by a specific purpose computer, a detection device that measures a respiratory airflow or a respiratory treatment apparatus that provides a respiratory treatment regime based on the detected ventilation sufficiency.
