October 2010

AARC Congress Coming Up Soon; Program Online Now
The AARC will be heading to Las Vegas, NV this Dec. 6–9, and if the Advance Program is any indication, it should be a great meeting for Sleep RTs. Topics range from sleep in the intensive care unit, to PAP adherence, and sleep testing in the home, to maintaining and increasing patient sleep volume in troubling economic times. This year’s premier lectures, the Egan and Kittredge, focus squarely on issues we all care most about as well: The Mechanical Ventilator—Past, Present, and Future, and COPD Heterogeneity: What This Will Mean in Practice. Also, don’t miss out on your section’s annual membership business meeting held Thursday, Dec. 9 at 11:05 am. It’s your opportunity to hear what’s new in your section and voice your opinion about what you’d like to see done in 2011. So check out the program, and then register by Oct. 31 for earlybird savings.

Plan Now to Contribute an Article to a 2011 Issue of the Bulletin
As the year winds down, section leaders are busy planning for 2011, and one of the things that we’d like to boost next year is contributions to our quarterly Bulletin. So if you have topic that you’d like to address, consider writing a short article on it (500-700 words) and submitting it for publication to our Bulletin editor, SUZANNE BOLLIG. Deadlines for the 2011 issues are: Winter–Jan. 1; Spring–April 1; Summer–July 1; Fall–Oct. 1.

Chronic Insomnia Patients who Fail Pharmacotherapy May Have Other Problems
Patients who present to a sleep center complaining of chronic insomnia that has not responded to pharmacotherapy may be suffering from another problem complicating their poor sleep, find New Mexico researchers publishing in this month’s Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. They performed a chart review on 137 patients with an average duration of chronic insomnia of 13 years and an average duration of pharmacotherapy use of 3.81 years. Results showed 96% had signs of maladaptive behavioral influences, 89% had psychiatric complaints, and 71% had obstructive sleep apnea. The authors conclude, “In chronic insomnia patients who failed pharmacotherapy, comorbid mental and physical factors indicated a sleep disturbance complexity unlikely to respond fully to medication.” READ ABSTRACT

Sleep in America Poll Data Reveals Strong Link Between Sleep and Work
U.S. researchers recently analyzed data on sleep and work derived from the 2008 National Sleep Foundation’s Sleep in America poll, looking at 1000 day workers who reported working 30 hours a week or more. Results linked long work hours to shorter sleep times, and shorter sleep times to more work impairments. A little over a third were deemed at risk for a sleep disorder, and negative work outcomes were more common among these individuals. For people with symptoms of insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, or restless legs syndrome, presenteeism was a significant problem. The authors conclude, “These results suggest that long work hours may contribute to chronic sleep loss, which may in turn result in work impairment. Risk for sleep disorders substantially increases the likelihood of negative work outcomes, including occupational accidents, absenteeism and presenteeism.” The study was published in the Sept. 30 Epub edition of the Journal of Sleep Research. READ ABSTRACT

Upper Airway Symptoms Before and After CPAP Therapy
Side effects like nasal stuffiness and dry nose and mouth are often cited as reasons for not adhering to nasal CPAP therapy by obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) patients. New research out of Finland suggests many of these patients may have had those same symptoms prior to CPAP treatment and, what’s more, CPAP therapy may actually help alleviate them. Investigators reached that conclusion after surveying 385 consecutive OSAS patients about upper airway symptoms before starting CPAP therapy and then again two months later. In the first survey, 61% of patients reported symptoms: 54% throat dryness, 52% nasal stuffiness, 51% nose dryness, 30% sneezing, 24% throat mucus, 17% rhinorrhea, and 6% nose bleeds daily or almost daily. After CPAP, the percentages declined for some of the symptoms, with only 37%, 34%, and 28% reporting frequent mouth, throat, and nose dryness, respectively, and just 24% reporting nasal stuffiness. The researchers attribute the improvement to the change in breathing pattern with CPAP. The study appeared in the Sept. 28 edition of Respiration. READ ABSTRACT

SDB May Not Reduce SWS and REM Sleep in Kids
A new study out of Australia looked at the extent of sleep disruption in 90 children with various severities of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and 30 age matched controls using both conventional visually scored assessment of sleep stages and arousal indices together with EEG power spectral analysis. While conventional visual scoring indicated that sleep duration was reduced in severely affected children, no significant decrease in the essential stages of SWS and REM was noted. The lack of substantial differences in EEG spectral power between the groups over the whole night, within specific hours, and in individual sleep stages supported this finding. The authors conclude, “These results suggest that reduced daytime functioning previously reported in children with SDB may not be due to sleep disruption. We speculate that in children, in contrast to adults, a stronger sleep drive may preserve sleep quality even in severe SDB.” The study appeared in the Sept. issue of Sleep. READ ABSTRACT