How Good Is Cpap At Treating Childhood Sleep Apnea?

How Good Is Cpap At Treating Childhood Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a very common sleep problem which now affects some 18,000,000 people in the US alone. This figure is roughly 1 in 15 or 6.62% of the population and does not include an estimated additional 2% to 4% of the population who are thought to be suffering from sleep apnea but who have not yet been diagnosed.

What most people do not realize however is that there are also an amazingly large and increasing number of children who are suffering from sleep apnea, with estimates revealing that in the region of 2% of all children suffer from sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea in children requires especially close attention as at this crucial stage of development the condition can lead to learning, IQ and memory problems.

In a lot of cases obstructive sleep apnea arises to a large degree from overweight and the first stage in the treatment of the problem is thus to shed a little weight. This however is not always as easy as it sounds and does not always reduce the problem sufficiently.

For a lot of children the next step is the use of an oral appliance while sleeping. Oral appliances must be custom made and fitted by a qualified orthodontist and are intended to hold the lower jaw in a position which makes sure that the throat is kept open during sleep. Once again improvement is frequently less than satisfactory and a lot of children are less than happy wearing them.

The gold standard when it comes to the treatment of sleep apnea is the CPAP machine which delivers a steady stream of air by way of a mask which the child wears during sleep sleeping and which keeps the airway open.

CPAP machines have proved to be extremely successful but, like any treatment, they only produce sound results if they are used properly and this is where we encounter a particular problem with children.

In a recent study several children having CPAP treatment were monitored for 6 months to establish just how closely they followed the advice given for the use of their CPAP machines. The group underwent sleep studies at both the start and end of the study period and both they and their parents were questioned by the researchers about their use of the CPAP machines. In addition, the machines which were used for the evaluation were all fitted with meters to record the use

of the machines.

The study discovered that over 75% of the children did not use their machines as intended every night and that even the relatively small number of children who made use of their machines every night were using them for only about 5 hours a night which was insufficient to gain the maximum benefit from their use. Possibly most importantly, bearing in mind the fact that a significant number of the children being evaluated were very young and thus needed parental supervision to ensure the proper use of their machines, the study revealed that the overwhelming majority of parents overestimated the use of the system by around two hours each night.

At this stage, in spite of the fact that it is evident that many children are not receiving the full benefit of CPAP treatment, it is not clear just why they are failing to use the system properly and additional studies are underway to see just what improvements can be made for treating sleep apnea in children.