Sleep Apnea Brain Injury and Comment

[Slinky]

How many have read the Streamlining Sleep Apnea News link of 14 June titled "Sleep Apnea Linked To Brain Injury"??

The article actually mentions a fully data capable CPAP!!!! I couldn't resist posting the following comment!!!

Mr Reynolds was fortunate to get a fully data capable CPAP! Too many times obstructive sleep apnea patients are provided w/a bare bone, compliance data only CPAP. Even Medicare doesn't require that compliance data printout but is content to rely on just a written notice by the patient that they are compliant. Patient use of a fully data capable CPAP and easy access to that data provides encouragement to continue CPAP use as they see and feel the results each morning. That data can verify their suspicions that their CPAP therapy needs some adjustment which can result in contact w/their sleep specialist when needed, more efficient use of their sleep specialist contacts and less unnecessary trips to their sleep specialist. It encourages teamwork w/their medical professionals and some control over their own sleep health care.

[Rankbud]

[quote="Slinky"]How many have read the Streamlining Sleep Apnea News link of 14 June titled "Sleep Apnea Linked To Brain Injury"??

The article actually mentions a fully data capable CPAP!!!! I couldn't resist posting the following comment!!!

[ozij]

Welcome Rankbud.

Here's what the article mentions:

Reynolds, who was not overweight when he began suffering from the disorder, said his sleep used to be interrupted 44 times an hour. He gained weight, his blood pressure rose, and he became so depressed that for two years his utility bills went unpaid, which meant he sat in darkness inside his home.

To relieve his symptoms, Reynolds uses a continuous positive airway pressure machine. The CPAP mask opens the passageway in his throat to help him breath. The machine also records his sleep pattern so he can see how many times he wakes up per hour.

In a way typical of many news reports, the ariticle glosses overy what may be difficult to explain, and confuse first time readers: It empahsises Reynolds' sleep interruption (everybody knows what that means). And avoids the more complex, real issue that acutally it's the Apnea Hypopnea Index measured by the machine, and not sleep/wake states - or arousals.

There is no cpap or apap or bi-level machine that can record "how many times" a person "wakes up per hour". The good machines do record breathing interruptions. And no doubt that kind of machine - a fully data capable machine - is what Mr. Reynolds has.

Here are the first 2 references I found by using "Google Scholar" to search for < 'Ronald Harper" + Apnea>

Brain Morphology Associated with Obstructive Sleep Apnea
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Vol 166. pp. 1382-1387, (2002)

fMRI responses to cold pressor challenges in control and obstructive sleep apnea subjects
J Appl Physiol 94: 1583-1595, 2003. First published January 3, 2003;




<mammillary bodies +apnea> on google scholar brought this up:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18486338
Reduced mammillary body volume in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.
Neuroscience letters 2008 Jun 27;438(3):330-4. Epub 2008 Apr 25

We evaluated mammillary body volumes in 43 OSA (mean age+/-S.D., 46.9+/-9.2 years; mean apnea-hypopnea-index+/-S.D., 31.2+/-19.9events/h) and 66 control subjects (age, 47.3+/-8.9 years). Two high-resolution T1-weighted image volumes were collected on a 3.0T magnetic resonance scanner, averaged to improve signal-to-noise, and reoriented (without warping) into a common space. Brain sections containing both mammillary bodies were oversampled, and the bodies were manually traced and volumes calculated. OSA patients showed significantly reduced left, right, and combined mammillary body volumes compared with control subjects, after partitioning for age, gender, and head size (multivariate linear model, p<0.05). Left-side mammillary bodies showed greater volume reduction than the right side. Diminished mammillary body volume in OSA patients may be associated with memory and spatial orientation deficits found in the syndrome. The mechanisms contributing to the volume loss are unclear, but may relate to hypoxic/ischemic processes, possibly assisted by nutritional deficiencies in the syndrome.

O.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): cpap mask, news, CPAP, APAP, Bi-Level Machine

[Rankbud]

[quote="ozij"]Welcome Rankbud.

You'll find newer ones if you sort the search results by date.

O.

[ozij]

(I was editing while you responded...).
O.

[Slinky]

You guys bring up good points, but, GOSHES, I was just trying to keep it simple. You know, KISS. After all, this article was aimed at the general public. Or at least that is the way I took it.

I appreciated the links to the "scientific" articles as they are so much more interesting than the Pap (as in bland baby food) newspapers must feed to the public to reach the lowest common denominator.