60% of patients suffer obstructed breathing- findings from Nawaloka’s Sleep Lab study
View(s):Some 60 per cent of cases tested by the Sleep Lab at the Nawaloka Hospital were found to suffer from obstructed breathing difficulties, the hospital company said.
It said the lab has tested approximately 900 patients since August 2009, an average of 20 patients a month.
“60 per cent of these cases tested positive for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). This disorder causes frequent cessation of breathing during sleep, often for more than ten seconds at a time. And it has become more prevalent with the increasing incidence of obesity, the root cause of OSA and many other sleep disorders, which is growing increasingly common amongst more affluent societies,” it said in a media statement. The most effective and common treatment for OSA is the use of the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which requires that patients participate in an overnight sleep study at the Nawaloka Hospital Sleep Lab.
Sleep studies allow doctors to fully monitor a patient’s vital signs during their sleep cycle, which enables the specialists to then identify sleep related breathing disorders and assess the severity of these conditions. If untreated, obstructed breathing disorders may heighten the risks associated with high blood pressure, as well as causing heart attacks, strokes and hormonal disorders, such as impotency.
In addition, these could also increase the incidence of motor vehicle or work related accidents.
OSA affects 2.3 per cent of the population for a country like the UK, while the corresponding statistics for Sri Lanka are not known. Other common sleep disorders include insomnia, loud snoring, excessive sleepiness and abnormal movement and behaviour during sleep, Nawaloka said.
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