People with untreated or undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea have a markedly increased risk of severe motor vehicle crashes involving personal injury, according to a study presented at the 2007 American Thoracic Society International Conference, on Sunday, May 20, 2007.
The study of 800 people with sleep apnea and 800 without the nighttime breathing disorder found that patients with sleep apnea were twice as likely as people without sleep apnea to have a car crash, and three to five times as likely to have a serious crash involving personal injury. Overall, the sleep apnea group had a total of 250 crashes over three years, compared with 123 crashes in the group without sleep apnea.
Although not addressed in this particular study, the lead researcher noted, data from other research findings lends credible support to suggest that crashes related to sleep apnea are preventable, especially once the individual is fully compliant with xPAP therapy.
While many previous studies have shown that sleep apnea patients are at increased risk of car crashes, this study is the first to look at the severity of those crashes.
“We were surprised not only about how many of the sleep apnea patients’ crashes involved personal injury, but that some patients had fairly mild sleep apnea and were still having serious crashes,” says Alan Mulgrew, M.D., of the University of British Columbia Sleep Disorders Program in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Patients’ self-reported feeling of sleepiness was not found to be linked with an increased risk of car crashes, suggesting that patients are unaware of their driving hazard, Mulgrew says. Even patients with fairly mild sleep apnea were at increased risk of car crashes.
“Based on these findings, I now consider driving risk when deciding on treatment for patients with mild sleep apnea,” says Mulgrew.
Mulgrew’s findings – one of the largest research projects to combine sleep apnea diagnosis through overnight polysomnography and comparing and combining the findings with data from insurance records — have deep implications for all involved in sleep apnea diagnosis, not just those involved in the certification of professional drivers, such as truckers.
The study found that while in the general population men have more vehicle crashes than women, among sleep apnea patients, men and women crash at a similar rate.
While many people with obstructive sleep apnea snore loudly and frequently, following by periods of silence when airflow is reduced or blocked, and then come to a conclusion when the person begins to make choking, snorting, or gasping sounds when the person’s airway reopens.
Almost everyone is likely to snore at one time or another, and while most people with apnea snore, not everyone who snores has apnea. It has been found in all age groups. Estimates of snoring vary widely based on how it is defined.
Habitual snoring has been found in about 24 percent of adult women and 40 percent of adult men. Both men and women are more likely to snore as they age. Men, however, become less likely to snore after the age of 70.
Obstructive sleep apnea is best treated by the use of a positive airway pressure device, such as a continuous positive airway pressure device, or CPAP, or a bi-level positive airway pressure device, or bi-level or BiPAP, a registered trademark of Respironics, Inc., for a specific line of bi-level devices. The term xPAP is used when speaking of positive airway pressure machines, overall, when one specific type of machine is not being discussed.
Other treatments for apnea exist, though the success rate at eliminating the apneas — especially without surgery — are not close to the almost 100 percent success rate of xPAP devices. They include oral devices, including custom devices made by dentists; surgeries; and an implant that’s been on the market for a few years with mixed comments.
Signs of not getting enough sleep or sleeping poorly include consistently taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, awakening more than a few times or for long periods each night, feeling sleepy during the day, or having trouble concentrating at school or at work.
Keeping a daily sleep log, or diary, can help you track your sleep habits and identify what might be interfering with sleep. You may download a sleep diary. To download files from this site, you need to be registered as a site member to gain access. Once registered, simply login, and then download the files you’re interest in.
Links of interest
- Have you had bouts of insomnia lasting two weeks or more?
- Do you walk around in a constant fog, feeling sleepy, fatigued, and as though you have no energy?
- Perhaps you “feel” older than you are, or maybe it’s all you can do to stay awake while driving.
If any of that, or similar issues are familiar, or if you snore or have disrupted sleep, even if just a few simple, repeat trips to the bathroom during the night, check out these two online tests to help you get to the root of the issue. While they will not make a diagnosis for you, they will help you, your physician, or, more appropriately, a sleep specialist, find out what’s causing you the problem sleepiness.
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