Continuous Positive Airway Pressure

Apparently, sleep is important. And apparently, over 800,000 Australians have some kind of sleep disorder. The majority of these have Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB), most commonly sleep Apnoea (or apnea if you’re a septic). Apnoea comes in two flavours, Central Apnoea, or Obstructive Apnoea.

Still following? Well, central Apnoea is the scary (scarier?) type, with the brain not sending signals for breathing to occur. This appears to be a leading cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but since I can’t sell a machine to help the problem, I didn’t learn a lot about it. Obstructive apnoea is caused by (der..) an obstruction of the airway. Most prevalent in overweight men, its incidence is not only massively under diagnosed, it is also on the rise.

So, my point is, if you apply a mask connected to a pressure device (like the opposite of a vacuum cleaner), the obstruction is forced open, and breathing can occur “normally”.

Doesn’t sound very exciting until you see someone stop breathing for more than 10 seconds at a time. The airway closes, but the chest continues to try to suck in air. The heart races, and the patient is “aroused” (and that isn’t a good thing when you talk about sleep).

Sleep comprises of Non-REM and REM sleep. All sleep is good for us, but REM sleep is really important. And arousals limit REM sleep – every time we are aroused (whether we wake or not), and put us back to the earlier stages – resetting the cycle. What this means is that patients never get enough REM sleep, and wake up feeling like they have been run over by a truck. Very often these people also snore, so their sleep partners often don’t sleep well either. The consequences range from low performance and irritability, to psychosis and death. Sleep deprivation due to SDB is thought to be responsible for about 5% of fatal motor vehicle accidents.

So if you or someone you love don’t sleep well, or score high on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, talk to your GP about having a sleep study – it might change your life. Or save it.

Here endeth the lesson.

See – I did learn something today, despite REALLY wanting to fall asleep during the presentation. Oh, and one really interesting thing. Apparently, obesity is an indicator of SDB – the extra tissue around the airway complicates things. But, SDB can also contribute to obesity. A lack of sleep messes with your endocrine system, and disrupts secretion of leptin/grehlin. It also keeps you tired and without enough energy to maintain a good activity level. Two more days of cramming facts into my poor complaining brain, and then one day of normal work before I jet off to the land of the long white cloud. And I got to knit. I asked the presenter if he minded. Luckily he was an American, and he had read the study about keeping hands active during learning. I am now more more than half way through the main body, and well on my way to scary border town.

And the picture? Just a small thank you to the Chaser team, for bringing the budgie smugglers back into politics.