Study reveals how Depressive Symptoms seen in Sleep Apnea Patients could be

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Senior author, David R. Hillman, said, “Effective treatment of obstructive sleep apnea resulted in substantial improvement in depressive symptoms, including suicidal ideation”.

Hillman, who works as a clinical professor at the University of Western Australia and as a sleep physician at Perth’s Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, added, “The findings highlight the potential for sleep apnea, a notoriously underdiagnosed condition, to be misdiagnosed as depression”.

The new study includes data from 426 participants which included 243 men and 183 women on an average they were all aged 52 years.

There has been a new study which has revealed how the depressive symptoms in sleep apnea patients can be treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Of all the patients, 293 were diagnosed with sleep apnea and prescribed CPAP therapy.

Using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), consenting participants were assessed for symptoms of depression. Out of the 41 patients who took the CPAP treatment and reported baseline feelings of self-harm or that they would be “better dead”, no one reported consistent suicidal tendencies at the 3-month follow-up.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that typically features pauses in breathing, or at least infrequent breathing during sleep due to a constriction of the airway. It can occur maybe 30 times or even within an hour during sleep. Overnight, in-lab polysomnography was used to determine if they had sleep apnea.

Unfortunately, many people with sleep apnea don’t even realize they have it, especially single people who don’t have anyone who would notice them stop breathing or snore extremely loudly. 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. Depressive symptoms became worse with severity of obstructive sleep apnea. 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.

Agreeing study creators, the outcomes give more significance to screening individuals with depressive side effects for obstructive rest apnea. The National Institutes of Health estimates that 12 million Americans suffer from this form of sleep apnea, and perhaps many more who don’t realize they have it.