Sleep Apnea: Women Suffer Worse Than Men

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is an unpleasant nighttime condition that can have serious consequences. Even those with mild OSA can find themselves experiencing daytime drowsiness.

Recent research, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (JCSM), looked at the way OSA affects different genders. Researchers studied male and female sleep apnea sufferers and measured various clinical manifestations of symptoms including daytime sleepiness, mood disturbance and neurobehavioral performance. They found that:

Despite similar age, body mass index, and apnea-hypopnea index, women reported significantly lower functional status, more subjective daytime sleepiness, higher frequency of apnea symptoms, more mood disturbance, and poorer neurobehavioral performance compared to men at baseline.

Note that this research was looking at the severity of the symptoms of OSA, not the incidence of the condition.

The researchers also examined the effectiveness of CPAP treatment, however they found no significant difference between men and women.

Sleep Apnea and Alzheimer's

The flurry of research findings concerning Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) continues, this time in connection with Alzheimer's Disease.

New research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society studied patients who suffered from mild to moderate Alzheimer's and also sleep apnea. The study looked at the effect of CPAP treatment: half the group were given therapeutic CPAP for six weeks, the other half placebo CPAP for three weeks followed by therapeutic CPAP for three weeks.

At the end of the six week trial tests on the group as a whole showed "suggested improvements in verbal learning and memory as well as some aspects of executive function such as cognitive flexibility and mental processing speed".

Professor Sonia Ancoli-Israel who led the study said:

"Although it is unlikely that OSA causes dementia, the lowered oxygen levels and sleep fragmentation associated with OSA might worsen cognitive function. This study, which showed significant improvement in patients' neurological test scores after treatment with CPAP, suggests that clinicians who treat patients with Alzheimer's disease and sleep apnea should consider implementing CPAP treatment"