Sleep Apnea and PACU recovery time

Ritap1965 · Post by **Ritap1965** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:34 pm

I attended a conference where they talked about the impact sleep apnea have on patients post surgery recovery time. It was a small unfunded study of 300 patients. All the patients were 40 years or older. They used a questionaire before the surgery which asked simple questions like do you snore, do you wake up tired etc. They also looked at BMI and then scored the patients according to their BMI and the answers to the questionaire. Then they took 100 patients who scored high, and had them hooked up to a APAP machine when they came out of surgery. The patients had it on for about 25 minutes until they woke up and could breathe without problems. The results were astounding.

The 100 people who were on APAP spent hours less in the hospital and went home on time.
This is significant because out of the 100 people who scored the same and did not get the APAP, 7 of them were admitted to the hospital overnight because of respiratory problems.

None of the 300 people had a diagnosis of sleep apnea. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting study. They now use the questionaire on all their patients I believe, and those who score high gets APAP after surgery, and then are given a letter that they may wish to talk to their health care provider about maybe getting screened for sleep apnea.

If you are interested, here is a newspaper article that also talks about this.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... _n18781591

The moral of the story, if you are going to have surgery, ask if they will provide APAP after surgery, or bring your own gear and insist on them putting it on you when you get out of surgery into the PACU.

rested gal · Post by **rested gal** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:02 pm

Very, VERY interesting, Rita! Thanks for that link.

What smart guys... that Dr. Douglas Ross and respiratory therapist Karl Ludwig.

Hope the idea spreads to hospitals all over. Beyond the benefit in the recovery room, just think of all the medical personnel and patients who would become aware of "OSA" for the first time. Hope most of the patients do follow up with their doctors the way the hospital recommends.