Just How Helpful Is Cpap For The Treatment Of Childhood Obstructive Sleep Apnea?

By Author: Donald Saunders
Total Articles: 84
Comment this article

Sleep apnea is an increasingly common sleep problem which currently affects some 18 million people in America alone. This figure is approximately 6.62% of the population which does not take into consideration an estimated additional 2% to 4% of the population who are thought to have sleep apnea but who have yet to be diagnosed.

What many people do not know however is that there are also an amazingly large and rising number of children who suffer from sleep apnea, with estimates showing that around 2% of all children suffer from sleep apnea.

In the case of children sleep apnea calls for particularly close attention as at this critical stage of growth and development apnea can result in learning, IQ and memory problems.

In a lot of cases obstructive sleep apnea results in no small measure from overweight and the first line of attack in treating the problem is thus to shed some weight. But, this may not be as simple as it sounds and does not always ease the problem sufficiently.

The next step for a lot of children is the use of an oral appliance while sleeping. Oral appliances are custom made for the ...
... child and fitted by a qualified orthodontist and are intended to keep the lower jaw in a position which makes sure that the throat is kept open while the child sleeps. Improvement is again often less than satisfactory and a lot of children are far from happy wearing them.

The best option when it comes to treating sleep apnea is the continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine which produces a steady stream of air by way of a mask which the child wears during sleep sleeping and which holds the airway open.

CPAP machines are very successful but, as with any treatment, they will only produce sound results when they are used correctly and here we come up against a problem with children.

In a recent study a number of children undergoing CPAP treatment were monitored over a six month period to establish just how closely they followed the advice given for using their CPAP machines. The children were subjected to sleep studies at the start and end of the study period and they and their parents were questioned closely by researchers about their use of the machines. In addition, the machines which were used for the evaluation were equipped with meters to record the use of the machines.

The study found that over seventy-five percent of the children did not make use of their machines as intended every night and that even those children who used their machines every night were using the machines for only about 5 hours a night which was not sufficient to gain the maximum benefit from their use. Possibly most importantly, taking into consideration the fact that a lot of the children in the study were very young and thus needed supervision to ensure the correct use of their machines, the study showed that the overwhelming majority of parents overestimated the use of the system by approximately two hours each night.

At this point, though it is evident that children are not getting the full benefit of CPAP treatment, it is unclear precisely why they are failing to use the system correctly and additional studies are underway to see just what improvements are possible for treating childhood sleep apnea.