Sleep apnea treatment alleviates depression symptoms

It was seen that depressive symptoms grew consistently and independently with sleep apnea severity.

Senior author David R. Hillman, MD, clinical professor at the University of Western Australia and sleep physician at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth stated, “Effective treatment of obstructive sleep apnea resulted in substantial improvement in depressive symptoms, including suicidal ideation”.

The findings revealed that 213 of 293 patients or close to 73 percent suffering from sleep apnea had symptoms of depression that were described as “clinically significant”.

The study included 426 patients who were referred to a sleep center to evaluate suspected sleep apnea.

However, clinically significant depressive symptoms remained in only 4 percent of the sleep apnea patients who adhered to CPAP therapy for 3 months (9 of 228 patients).

CPAP or continuous positive airway pressure includes mild air pressure being delivered to the patient while they sleep, usually through a mask which helps keeps airways open. So, study authors recommend doctors to ask their depressed patients whether they experience sleep apnea symptoms while they are asleep.

During the study the patients used CPAP for five hours over duration of three months.

Obstructive sleep apnea can wreak havoc on the human body. Of the 41 treatment adherent patients who initially reported feelings of self-harm or that they would be “better dead”, none reported persisting suicidal thoughts at the three-month follow-up. It can occur maybe 30 times or even within an hour during sleep. This disrupts the quality of the person’s sleep, leading to tiredness and fatigue during periods where they are awake, and in serious cases it can create a risk of sudden death.

When breathing pauses, carbon dioxide builds up in the blood stream, and chemoreceptors in the blood stream noticed these high CO2 levels causing the brain to wake the person up and take a breath – an interruption in sleep that prevents prolonged period of deep sleep necessary to the human body. As of now the diagnosis is hard for sleep apnea and hence many even go unaware of suffering from it. In rare cases, sleep apnea can result in death during sleep. There is also central sleep apnea, which is more rare and is a problem with the respiratory system, and the third form is a combination of the two. In obstruct sleep apnea, there is a physical block to the airflow despite adequate respiratory effort, and snoring is common in people who have this. Most people have obstructive, when the airways are constricted. These results show how important it is to screen people who have depressive symptoms for OSA as well.