Obstructive sleep apnoea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Obstructive sleep apnoea - Essay Example The conventional and popular treatment like CPAP, VPAP, and APAP along with development of new therapies and their respective operating mechanisms are explained. Lastly the widening future perspective is mentioned with special emphasis on the prevalence of the disease on the infants. 1. Introduction Obstructive sleep apnea is a pathological disorder generally found with cyclic upper airway obstruction with the narrowing of the respiratory passages during sleep. A general trend that follows with this disorder is that the majority people affected are overweight with higher deposits of fatty tissues in their respiratory passages with hyper normal size of soft palates and tongues (Obstructive Sleep Apnea, n.d.). Adverse consequences of this disorder are related with excessive daytime sleepiness, cognitive dysfunction, retarded work performance, anxiety, difficulties in personal relations, increased risk of fatal and non fatal automobile accidents leading to the loss of human life and hug e economical burden in the modern world. Thus the study of this disorder in its core is a necessity and synchronous analysis of this disorder is elucidated in the paper from problem identification to functional remedial measures. 1.1 Historical background Years after the World war, medical science saw new dimensions in the psychological treatments which included brain wave patterns and rapid eye movement (REM). During 1960s, several investigators participated in the explanatory and quantitative analysis of human and animal sleep with related changes in subsequent stages of development. Development revealed the phenomenal concept of duality of sleep which stated that sleep generally consisted of two distinct organismic states that is REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Fig.1 General Structure of sleep (Dement, 1998) Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) was first diagnosed in Europe in the year 1965 by two groups Gastant et al, Jung and Kuhlo. This disorder was named as the â€Å"Pickwickian synd rome† a decade earlier with the misattribution that the daytime somnolence is a cause hypercapnia (excess of carbon di oxide in the body) and it would have not unfurled transparently until Italian neurologist Elio Lugaresi became deeply engrossed in the study of the Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) and tracked down the problem with unparalleled zeal and set the platform for its further research (Dement, 1998). Throughout the 1970s the only effective treatment for acute OSA was chronic tracheostomy, which generated severe constraints and was regarded as a barrier to the expansion of the sleep medicine. The phase of 1980s ushered with the development of alternative method like Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty. In recent decade awareness has been greatly spread and facts reveal that OSA afflicts around 30 million people in USA and many millions around the globe. The disorder is found to vary among different age groups depending on the way of diagnosis of the disorder (Dement, 1998). 1.2 E pidemiology and Prevalence of apnea The fundamental features of OSA are generally featured by frequent instances of apnea and hypopnea while in slumber. In adults undiagnosed OSA is very common wide severity, cardiovascular and behavioral disorders. A need for better credit and management of severe and symptomatic OSA is highly necessary (Young et al, 2002). The prevalence of OSA has been estimated to vary in the range of 2 to 10 percent