Dreaming of a good night’s sleep?
SLEEP APNOEA IS LINKED TO HIGHER RISK OF MORTALITY AND REDUCED QUALITY OF LIFE
When it comes to disorders affecting nights of peaceful sleep, sleep apnoea ranks on top with an estimated 936 million people worldwide suffering from the condition, a latest study has suggested.
Sleep apnoea is a chronic sleep-disordered breathing condition associated with increased risk of mortality and reduced quality of life.
The statistics are based on the latest scoring rules for determining one’s apnoea — hypopnoea index (AASM 2012) and a 16-country study announced in May 2018.
According to Business WireAetoswire, the statistics were presented by ResMed last month at the European Respiratory Society’s annual ERS Congress in Paris.
The new global prevalence is nearly tenfold higher than the previous one — 100 million — estimated by the World Health Organisation in 2007. This highlights the scale of a global health crisis, and UAE residents are no exception to the condition.
Dr Fabrizio Facchini, Consultant Pulmonologist at Valiant Clinic Dubai, pointed out that according to the latest statistics in the UAE, 4 per cent of males (275,600) and 2 per cent of females (53,000) suffer from symptomatic obstructive sleep apnoea.
“On the whole, less than half a million people suffer from sleep apnoea in the UAE,” he told Gulf News.
The condition can occur in people of all ages not only as a result of genetic and anatomical predisposition, but also due to morbid obesity, said Dr Facchini. “There are two age groups, which show an increased prevalence — one is in young people, when the tonsils obstruct the oropharyngeal space, and the second is in those above the age of 50, when their pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles become more ‘floppy’ at night,” he explained.
Generally, people at a very young age do not have episodes of apnoea/hypopnoeas. However, Dr Facchini pointed out it is physiological to present few episodes per hour as a person gets older. “It is normal to expect up to 10 episodes per hour in a person who has reached the age of 80,” he said.
Many factors can contribute to the occurrence of an abnormal number of episodes. They include smoking, alcohol consumption and the use of sedatives, which increases muscle relaxation of the upper airways.
“Hypertrophic tonsils, obesity and other health conditions reduce the available space in the upper airways, making it more likely to present obstructive sleep apnoea,” added Dr Facchini.
The symptoms can include loud snoring, breathing pauses, choking or gasping for air, insomnia with restless sleep, and the frequent need to go to the toilet during the night.
Symptoms can also occur during the daytime in the form of early morning headaches, waking up with a dry mouth, daytime sleepiness, irritability and poor capacity to concentrate, and can include the risk of falling asleep during routine activities, explained Dr Facchini.
“Obstructive sleep apnoea is not only a concern for the symptoms it causes, but more for the long-term health consequences it exposes untreated patients to such as increased risk of car accidents, increased risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes, heart failure and stroke,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Hassan Hariri, Head of Sleep Clinic and Pulmonologist at Rashid Hospital, said the prevalence of OSA increases with age. He was part of a 2011 study titled ‘Prevalence of symptoms and risk of sleep apnoea in Dubai, UAE’.
“The results showed that the condition gets worse with ageing and goes up to 40 per cent after the age of 50,” said Dr Hariri.
He pointed out that an adult is diagnosed with the condition when he experiences five events where he stops breathing or experiences shallow breathing.
Meanwhile, in children, experiencing one or two breathing pauses is considered abnormal.