Outcomes Data for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Treatment: What Do We Really Know?

Obstructive sleep apnea is one of the most common chronic respiratory illnesses, causing daytime sleepiness and cognitive and cardiovascular morbidity. The most successful treatment has been with positive airway pressure (continuous positive airway pressure or bilevel positive airway pressure). It has been surprisingly difficult to demonstrate improvement in these outcomes with continuous positive airway pressure treatment.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Treatment with Positive Airway Pressure.

As in other adults, continuous positive airway pressure treatment for obstructive sleep apnea should be the mainstay of treatment. Benefits include improvements in sleepiness and quality of life, as well as improvements in hypertension control, arrhythmias, cardiovascular risk, and mortality. This article discusses issues in prescribing this treatment, including those related specifically to elderly individuals.

Normal and Abnormal Sleep in the Elderly.

Sleep-related complaints are so common in older adults that it may be difficult to distinguish whether the complaint is a consequence of normal aging or a disease process. The elderly are more likely to have common medical problems that affect sleep, and the most common sleep problems, including sleep apnea and insomnia, are more prevalent in this demographic. This article briefly describes normal sleep in general, the clinical assessment of sleep complaints, and expected changes with aging, with an overview of the epidemiology of insomnia and sleep apnea in this age group.

Sleep in the Elderly: Unanswered Questions.

Sleep normally changes with aging, with implications for healthy elderly individuals as well as for those with disease states. Less slow wave sleep (deep sleep) is expected, along with more awakenings, and a tendency toward earlier sleep times. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder is seen primarily in elderly individuals, and it often represents the earliest sign of a chronic and progressive neurologic disease.