General Discussion on any topic relating to CPAP and/or Sleep Apnea.
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Hang Fire
- Posts: 468
- Joined: Mon Nov 04, 2013 8:03 pm
- Location: Raleigh, NC
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by Hang Fire » Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:39 am
"We still don't know what sleep apnea is."--Dr. Barbara Phillips.
Let me add, she may not know what sleep apnea is, but I sure as hell do. If I ever forget, a 30-minute nap on the sofa without CPAP will sure remind me.
D.H. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 5:33 pm
She's exaggerating to attract attention.
Exactly! I never read articles with headlines like that. They are almost always unprofessional and alarmist.
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ChicagoGranny
- Posts: 15130
- Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:43 pm
- Location: USA
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by ChicagoGranny » Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:52 am
Hang Fire wrote: ↑Tue Jan 15, 2019 8:31 am
After having used four highly recommended sleep docs in high-income zip codes of major urban areas, I don't trust any of them.
Next, try a hillbilly sleep doc?
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jnk...
- Posts: 2988
- Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2014 12:36 pm
- Location: New York State
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by jnk... » Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:27 am
I believe her point is that the important issue is more a matter of finding who will benefit from treatment rather than deciding who seems to meet the slippery medical definition of OSA that is currently being used--or that is actually being misused to prevent some people from having the opportunity to benefit from PAP therapy.
By "knowing what it is," she is referring to having an accurate medical definition that actually makes sense in practice to the benefit of patients.
My definition for "a patient with OSA" would be "anyone with any subjective or objective evidence of any benefits from the use of CPAP." Payers would NEVER allow that to be the working medical definition for docs, though, because it could easily mean payers approving PAP therapy for way too large a portion of the population, in their short-sighted view.
-Jeff (AS10/P30i)
Accounts to put on the foe list: Me. I often post misleading, timewasting stuff.
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zebras
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2016 4:06 am
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by zebras » Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:32 am
I just skimmed over it, but I think she is 100% right and some of you are being overly critical
Not agreeing on a single definition is a huge problem in sleep medicine. Sleep medicine is moving extremely slow for some reason. I mean have you never asked yourself why AHI >5 has been used as a cutoff?
There is simply no reason to believe that it makes sense to use a single, arbitrary requirement that does not even correspond to a patients wellbeing. And she has pointed out correctly that AHI varies between sleep labs. Not to mention RDI.
Also as opposed to what some people here said, she never claimed OSAS doens't exist.
