Study: Most OSA patients don't use CPAP as prescribed

[Wulfman]

Another article from the current HME News:


Specialty Providers
August 2006

Study: Most OSA patients don't use CPAP as prescribed
Brief

SALT LAKE CITY - Nearly 60% of newly diagnosed OSA patients do not adhere to prescribed treatments, despite widespread promotion of CPAP as the most effective treatment, according to a paper presented in June at a meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Salt Lake City. Nearly 990 newly diagnosed patients were followed over their first five months of treatment by J.J. Palau of the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Palau found that only 20% used CPAP regularly as prescribed.

[dsm]

Den,

You are clearly on a roll

Thanks for all the reports etc:

DSM

[Guest]

This is a sad study... I know I had to push one of my friends to get checked out for it for quite some time before he did. I think he's been compliant with it though since the last time I spoke with him.

stryker5777

[cpapjack]

SALT LAKE CITY - Nearly 60% of newly diagnosed OSA patients do not adhere to prescribed treatments, despite widespread promotion of CPAP as the most effective treatment, according to a paper presented in June at a meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Salt Lake City. Nearly 990 newly diagnosed patients were followed over their first five months of treatment by J.J. Palau of the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Palau found that only 20% used CPAP regularly as prescribed.

What about the other 20%

[imsotired]

I will stay compliant because I feel better during the days but every night when I go to bed I think to myself "I can't believe I'll have to deal with this every night for the rest of my life". I do feel slightly claustrophobic when I first put the mask on and have to talk myself through keeping it on until I fall asleep. Once I'm asleep I'm out cold for 5-6 hours but not a minute more and the second I wake up I feel the need to rip it off my face like I can't stand one more second of it. I hope this will subside eventually as it's only been 5 nights on it. I kind of miss that insatiable night time sleep that used to feel so good but was really horrible. Kind of weird that the bad suffocating sleep felt so good and the good healthy sleep feels dreadful.

[OSAGuy]

But statistics also show that 3 out of four people make up 75% of the worlds population.

I take these types of articles with a grain of salt, as it gives the short version. I would agree that CPAP compliance is quite low, but can;t buy into the argument that only 20% are compliant.

[NightHawkeye]

Study: Most OSA patients don't use CPAP as prescribed

Did they happen to speculate as to why that might be, Den? I mean, do they suggest that it's all the patient's fault?

Regards,
Bill

[Wulfman]

Study: Most OSA patients don't use CPAP as prescribed

Did they happen to speculate as to why that might be, Den? I mean, do they suggest that it's all the patient's fault?

Regards,
Bill

Bill,

What you see is the entire article. I simply copied and pasted it from the HME News into the forum post. Nothing edited or re-typed. Dat's it!

Den

[Wulfman]

I did a little searching for the doctor named in the article. Here's a link to basically a longer version of the article:

http://professionals.epilepsy.com/newsf ... 83018.html


Den

[MaskedMechanic]

I wonder which local cpap providers were these 990 patients referred to. I wonder whether they received heated humidifiers, easy breathing technologies, and state of the art masks/nasal pillows.

Did the patients referred to one cpap provider do better than the rest? This data could be useless as it all could have gone to some poor service DME who did not assist or follow up these unfortunate 990. JMHO

[Wulfman]

Unfortunately, it doesn't tell us diddly squat. Like, WHEN he did all of those 990 interviews (and over what period of time). I would think it would take a pretty good period of time to interview these people.....unless it was done my a mail-in questionaire.
I'd be curious as to how he got the names of those patients.
WHO were the DMEs? (doesn't say much for that "patient care" business, does it?)

For all of you Utah residents......guess who's sharing the highways with YOU???

Den

[z754103]

ROTFL - that's exactly my experience except it takes me about 2 hours to fall asleep with it and so far I'm waking up after 4 horus and ripping it off my face.... However, skipping the mask for one day crippled me, so I guess 4 hours of non-apnea sleep beats 8 hours of 'bad' sleep.

I will stay compliant because I feel better during the days but every night when I go to bed I think to myself "I can't believe I'll have to deal with this every night for the rest of my life". I do feel slightly claustrophobic when I first put the mask on and have to talk myself through keeping it on until I fall asleep. Once I'm asleep I'm out cold for 5-6 hours but not a minute more and the second I wake up I feel the need to rip it off my face like I can't stand one more second of it. I hope this will subside eventually as it's only been 5 nights on it. I kind of miss that insatiable night time sleep that used to feel so good but was really horrible. Kind of weird that the bad suffocating sleep felt so good and the good healthy sleep feels dreadful.

[imsotired]

z754103 - I have found that I can tolderate the Comfortcurve much easier than I can the Comfortclassic nasal mask. I feel much less clausterphobic or suffocated with it than the classic that covers my entire nose. I tried to use it last night because thought it might be a good idea to alternate using the two but it only lasted 10 minutes before I switched back to the Comfortcurve.

[Snoredog]

I will stay compliant because I feel better during the days but every night when I go to bed I think to myself "I can't believe I'll have to deal with this every night for the rest of my life". I do feel slightly claustrophobic when I first put the mask on and have to talk myself through keeping it on until I fall asleep. Once I'm asleep I'm out cold for 5-6 hours but not a minute more and the second I wake up I feel the need to rip it off my face like I can't stand one more second of it. I hope this will subside eventually as it's only been 5 nights on it. I kind of miss that insatiable night time sleep that used to feel so good but was really horrible. Kind of weird that the bad suffocating sleep felt so good and the good healthy sleep feels dreadful.

cpap is not so bad....

it's really no worse than finding yourself in a dream where you wake up and you are in the middle of the shoe section at Wal-Mart wearing some cheap Chinese made flip-flops and they still have the plastic connector thingee keeping the two shoes together, you are trying to walk but can only take tiny steps... you end up falling down and wake up realizing you can take the shoes off.

same with cpap... about as comfortable as them cheap shoes but you can take it off in the morning

[ladytonya]

My problem is that I take the cheap shoes off in my sleep. I go to bed every night with my mask on my face. Everything seems fine, it's relatively comfortable and my awake self really doesn't mind it at all. I've even watched tv and read with it on and taken short naps with it on, but when it comes to sleeping all night with it my asleep self takes it off at some point during the night and tosses it aside. I'm wearing the Hybrid and I can't get it on without unhooking both botom clips, but I am somehow removing it in my sleep without waking up and without unhooking any of the clips. When I look at my usage in the morning, it runs anywhere from a low of 2.5 hours to a high of 5.5 hours. I have never made it over 5.5 hours with any mask, and the Hybrid is the only mask that's even made it that far.

Am I considered compliant because I am using it every night, or am I non-compliant because it doesn't last very long? I am at a loss as to what to do at this point because I've been using since last December, although there was a two month break in there where I stopped using because I was just so frustrated with the whole thing and then I found this web site and tried to get back on track. Despite my best efforts, I am still no there yet.