How Effective is CPAP For Treating Obstructive Sleep Apnea In Children?

Sleep apnea is an extremely common sleep problem which now affects roughly 18 million people in the USA alone. That represents approximately 6.62% of the population and does not take into account an additional 2% to 4% of the population who are thought to be suffering from the condition but who have not yet been diagnosed.

However, what a lot of people do not realize is that there are also a surprisingly large and rising number of children who suffer from sleep apnea, with estimates revealing that some 2% of all children are suffering from obstructive sleep apnea.

When it comes to children sleep apnea deserves especially close attention as at this crucial stage of development apnea can result in memory, learning and IQ difficulties.

In a lot of cases obstructive sleep apnea arises in no small measure from overweight and the first line of attack in treating the condition is thus to lose a bit of weight. This however may not be as easy as it sounds and frequently does not reduce the problem enough.

The next step for a lot of children is to use an oral appliance while sleeping. These oral appliances must be custom made and fitted by a qualified orthodontist and are intended to hold the lower jaw in a position that ensures that the throat is kept open while the child sleeps. Once again improvement is frequently less than satisfactory with an oral appliance and a lot of children are far from happy wearing them.

The best option when it comes to treating obstructive sleep apnea is the continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine which delivers a steady stream of air by way of a mask that the child wears during sleep sleeping and which keeps the airway open.

Pediatric CPAP machines are very successful but, as with any treatment, they only produce sound results if they are used correctly and this is where we come up against a particular problem with children.

In a recently conducted study a number of children having CPAP treatment were followed over a six month period to see how closely they were following the medical advice given for the use of their CPAP machines. The children underwent sleep studies at both the beginning and end of the evaluation period and both they and their parents were questioned by the researchers about their use of the CPAP machines. In addition, the machines used in the study were equipped with meters that recorded the use of the machines.

The study discovered that over 75% of the children did not make use of their machines as intended every night and that even the relatively small number of children who used their machines consistently were using the machines for only about 5 hours a night which was not sufficient to gain the full benefit from their use. Perhaps most importantly, taking into consideration the fact that many of the children being evaluated were very young and thus needed supervision to ensure the proper use of the machines, the study showed that the vast majority of parents overestimated their child's use of the system by approximately two hours each night.

At this point, although it is evident that children are not getting the full benefit of CPAP treatment, it is not clear exactly why they are failing to use the system correctly and further studies are being carried out to see what improvements are possible for the treatment of childhood obstructive sleep apnea.