How Effective is CPAP When It Comes To Treating Childhood Obstructive Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea is an increasingly common sleep problem which now affects about 18 million people in the US alone. This represents roughly 6.62% of the population which does not take into consideration an estimated additional 2% to 4% of the population who are thought to be suffering from sleep apnea but who have yet to be diagnosed.

What most people do not know however is that there are also a surprisingly large and growing number of children who suffer from sleep apnea, with estimates revealing that in the region of 2% of all children suffer from sleep apnea.

When it comes to children sleep apnea requires particularly close attention because at this crucial stage of development the condition can result in IQ, memory and learning problems.

In a lot of cases obstructive sleep apnea results to a large degree from being overweight and the first stage in treating the problem is thus to shed some weight. This however might not be as simple as it sounds and frequently does not reduce the problem sufficiently.

The next step for a lot of children is the use of an oral appliance when sleeping. These oral appliances are custom made and fitted by an orthodontist and are designed to keep the lower jaw in a position which makes sure that the throat is kept open while the child is sleeping. Again improvement is not always satisfactory and a lot of children are less than happy wearing them.

The best choice when it comes to treating sleep apnea is the continuous positive airway machine which produces a steady stream of air through a mask which the child wears while sleeping and which keeps the airway open.

CPAP machines are extremely successful but, like any treatment, they only produce good results if they are used correctly and here we come up against a particular problem with children. In a recently conducted study several children undergoing CPAP treatment were followed for six months to establish how closely they followed the advice given for using their CPAP machines.

The children were subjected to sleep studies at both the start and end of the study period and both they and their parents were questioned by the researchers about their use of the machines. Additionally, the machines which were used for the evaluation were all fitted with meters to record the use of the machines.

The study discovered that over 75% of the children did not use their machines every night and that even those children who used their machines every night were using them for only about 5 hours each night which was not sufficient to get the full benefit from their use. Possibly most importantly, bearing in mind the fact that many of the children in the study were very young and therefore required supervision to ensure the correct use of their machines, the study discovered that the vast majority of parents overestimated their child's use of the system by around two hours each night.

At this point, though it is evident that many children are not getting the full benefit of CPAP treatment, it remains unclear exactly why they are failing to use the system properly and further studies are underway to see what improvements can be made for treating childhood sleep apnea.

Help-Me-To-Sleep.com looks in detail at the latest treatment for sleep apnea and also at how common is obstructive sleep apnea