Snoring: Funny Annoyance or Serious Problem?

If you have been keeping up with me, you know I would claim that sleep deprivation is the "root of all evil" for many accidents or otherwise negative events in American society.  One form of usually unknown, and often untreated sleep deprivation is sleep apnea.  Sleep apnea is defined, according to webMD, as "a sleep disorder that occurs when a person's breathing is interrupted during sleep."  In other words, those with sleep apnea are those who snore.  Annoying?  Yes.  Unhealthy?  Yes.  Dangerous?  Yes.  Of course you will be sleep deprived if your sleep is interrupted because you cannot breathe!  And you cannot be blamed for a slow reaction time during an accident when you are not alert.

The article by "The Association Between Sleep Apnea and the Risk of Traffic Accidents" by J. Teran-Santos, A. Jimenez, J. Cordero-Guevara, and the Cooperative Group Burgos-Santander explores a study correlating, as alluded to in its title, sleep apnea to traffic accidents.  We already know that sleep deprivation is directly correlated with the occurrence of traffic accidents, so it is not surprising then that sleep apnea could cause car accidents: patients who experience sleep apnea are in fact quite sleep-deprived, usually without knowing it.

For this group's study, participants answered several questionnaires:

-about their health history

-traffic accident history (as it relates to how drowsy they were at the time and causes of this drowsiness)

-daytime sleepiness as measured by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (8 item questionnaire designed to illuminate the probability of responders are to fall asleep in various common daytime situations)

The researchers also used polysomnography (means of recording the brain's electrical activity and body's movements during sleep) as an experimental data measure.

Dr. Teran-Santos and the rest of the research team analyzed the results of 254 subjects, a little more than half of them being controls (not diagnosed with sleep apnea) while the rest were experimentally dependent participants.  The results, as already mentioned, showed a significant association between a patients presenting with sleep apnea and traffic accidents, those diagnosed having a larger total number of accidents historically than those characterized as a healthy and free of sleep apnea or related problems.  Granted, because only questionnaire reporting was used to qualify the details of reported accidents, recall bias could skew the accuracy of participants’ answers.  Serious accidents involving multiple vehicles or instances of running off the road were excluded from the study.  Consequently, the authors reported that – even more alarming than the data’s proof of a general sleep apnea-accident correlation – a stronger correlation is likely present.  Lethal accidents often involve sleep deprivation or drowsiness.  Therefore, it remains probable that many such tragedies are caused by sleep apnea, especially in the case of someone who is not diagnosed or untreated.

Where do we go from here?

I suggest simply more education and prevention efforts from the medical community.  I would like to practice medicine one day.  Having the knowledge that I have gained from this course “in my pocket,” I will use it to educate my patients and encourage holistic health as much as possible.  Maybe I will not have to send them to a pulmonologist for “snoring problems.”  Hopefully they will be physically fit enough that their airways are free from obstruction, in bed and in waking, allowing for efficient and quality nightly sleep…and a better marriage?  A well-rested (with uninterrupted sleep) spouse is a happy spouse right?  I would hope so!

I have been sleep-deprived recently but luckily I breathe well when I sleep, and seem to sleep efficiently, almost never waking up during the night.  I also have not recently had to drive anywhere farther than a 15-minute trip in Waco, so I have not tested my drowsiness on the road (a good thing!)  I hope to again improve my nightly sleep routine and overall sleep health after I finish a paper I have due tomorrow…

This week I commented on Andrew Hughes’ and Nicole Massamillo’s blogs.