The More Natural Treatment to Sleep Apnea

As we learned in Dr. Weaver's talk on the Neuroscience of Sleep Apnea, Obstructive Sleep Apnea is estimated to affect 22 million Americans and there have been numerous studies conducted to determine treatments for these millions of people who have multiple pauses in breathing during the night, are tired during the day, and are less productive on average. One of the common treatments used for sleep apnea is the use of a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) which applies a small amount of pressure as the patient sleeps in order to keep the airway open in order to avoid the pauses in breathing. However, this machine is not very practical in that it does not mimic how a person would normally sleep at night. They are wearing a mask and connected to a machine which is loud for the partner of the patient as well.

In the talk, Dr. Weaver spoke of the alternatives to the CPAP machine that have been developed. There are multiple options that patients can use, but one of the more recent ones to be developed has been Positional Therapy. With this, a patient puts a strap around their upper body where the device is positioned on the sternum. In the article, The sleep position trainer: a new treatment for positional obstructive sleep apnoea, a study was conducted on this new method in three phases: diagnostic, training and therapy. Patients were measured using this device for a month. During the first two days, the diagnostic phase was carried out where the device monitored and recorded the patient's sleeping positions. Following, there was a training period where the device began to vibrate occasionally when the patient was sleeping on their back, which is when the apneas are most likely to occur. After the training period, the device would vibrate every time that the patient was sleeping on their back, in a supine position. The point of this is to encourage the patient to roll over to avoid the apneas, but not to wake them up in the meantime. It was found to be more helpful with people that were labeled as "compliant," meaning that they did actually roll over when encouraged by the device. Those who were "non-compliant" would have the device vibrate in intervals of two minutes until the patient finally rolled over. It has been found that in a month time span that this device is very effective in that it lowered the severity of patients' sleep apnea, they got more sleep, and felt more productive after a better night's sleep. Patients were also encouraged to be continue with the positional therapy because they had the ability to view their sleep patterns, recorded by the device, on their computers.

Positional therapy has not been tested in the long term, but more studies are to come. This could be a much more natural way to sleep that is less likely to interrupt either the patient's or their partner's sleep throughout the night than the CPAP machine.

Maanen, J., Meester, K., Dun, L., Koutsourelakis, I., Witte, B., Laman, D., . . . Vries, N. (2012). The sleep position trainer: A new treatment for positional obstructive sleep apnoea. Sleep and Breathing, 771-779.
Weaver, T., Calik, M., Farabi, S., Fink, A., Galang-Boquiren, M., Kapella, M., . . . Carley, D. (2014). Innovative treatments for adults with obstructive sleep apnea. Nature and Science of Sleep, 6, 137-147.