The Reproductive Endocrine Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital seeks healthy girls and boys (10-17 years old) with sleep apnea.

 The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of sleep apnea on reproductive hormones.

This study involves a screening visit (1 hour) and two overnight stays at the hospital (from approximately 6pm to 9am). The study will take at most 2 months to complete.

Payment for participation is up to $225.

Call Natalie at 617-726-1895 or email nshaw@partners.org for more information.

Natalie D Shaw, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617 726 1895
EMail: nshaw@partners.org

UVa Health System, Department of Medicine, Pulmonary Division seeks healthy men, women, children and adolescents ages 5 to 65, with snoring and possible sleep-related obstructive breathing disorders for a research study.

The purpose of the study is to determine if an experimental device for sleep monitoring can accurately tell if you are awake or asleep and how well you are sleeping. The experimental device will be compared to a sleep study done using standard sleep monitoring equipment.
The study involves 1 outpatient consent and screening visit that will last about 1 hour, and 1 overnight stay at UVa Health Systems GCRC of about 16 hours for sleep monitoring.

§ Study-related screening visit and overnight sleep test (standard test to detect the presence of sleep apnea) provided free of charge.
§ Compensation for study completion is $ 125.00
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SleepApneaDisorder/ [ Press Release ]/ Agoura Hills, CA / November 18, 2010/ The new technology is here and Nationwide Medical, Inc. is making it easy to get a good night’s rest by offering the new in-home sleep test to consumers who may be at risk for Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). The in-home technology has been developed as a way to diagnose OSA and enable physicians to prescribe a variety of methods available for sleep apnea treatment.

The in-home sleep test is a new medical technology that offers a variety of benefits, with the average cost a third lower than a sleep study in an overnight facility. More benefits are the ease of use and convenience of completing the test in the comfort of your own home. Read the rest of this entry

Employers generally are familiar with the definition of disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of an individual’s major life activities. Employers typically focus on the employee’s diagnosed medical or mental health condition when trying to determine if an employee suffers from a disability that would require accommodation under the ADA.

Recent decisions in the federal appellate courts suggest, however, that employers should also consider the side effects from treatment for an impairment when assessing whether an employee has a disability. Those cases suggest that side effects from treatment could constitute a disability, regardless of whether the underlying condition would be a disability.   Read the rest of this entry

State Rep. Robert Donatucci was elected to his 16th House term last week, but his career in office was tragically cut short in the early morning on Tuesday, November 9, 2010. Donatucci died in his sleep, his death caused by sleep apnea according to a doctor. Just about a week earlier, Donatucci had gone in for a sleep study, but he found the CPAP mask that he was asked to wear to be uncomfortable and did not complete the test.

“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Donatucci wasn’t tested earlier in life for sleep apnea,” says Philadelphia sleep apnea dentist, Dr. Kenneth Siegel. Dr. Siegel treats sleep apnea patients who, like State Rep. Donatucci, cannot tolerate or do not wish to undergo CPAP treatment, using oral sleep apnea appliances.

According to the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, somewhere between 18 million and 20 million people in America suffer from sleep apnea, and most of them haven’t even been diagnosed. Of those who are diagnosed and are prescribed treatment with a CPAP machine (CPAP stands for continuous positive airway pressure), fewer than 50% of those patients will comply with the treatment. Read the rest of this entry

Hazardous and harmful drinking and sleep problems are common, but their associations among patients seen in primary care have not been examined. We hypothesized that greater levels of alcohol consumption would be associated with several self-reported sleep problems.

In a cross-sectional survey in primary care practices, 94 participating clinicians recruited up to 30 consecutive adult patients, and both clinicians and patients completed anonymous postvisit questionnaires. Patients were asked questions on demographics, alcohol consumption, cardinal symptoms of alcohol use disorders, sleep quality, insomnia, sleep apnea, and symptoms of restless leg syndrome. Multivariate analyses explored the associations of drinking status (none, moderate, or hazardous) and sleep problems, adjusting for demographics and clustering of patients within physician. Read the rest of this entry

SleepApneaDisorder/ BOSTON, Mass./  Sleep HealthCenters has entered into an agreement with Roadside Medical Clinic + Lab to provide sleep medicine services as part of Roadside Medical’s industry-leading Driver Wellness programs.

Designed to enhance roadway safety by improving the health of commercial drivers, Roadside Medical Clinic + Lab provides cost-effective and professional medical services including DOT compliant physicals, drug testing, Driver Wellness Programs, and now sleep services in the most convenient locations for professional drivers—both on the highway and in company terminals. Sleep HealthCenters will support Roadside’s sleep wellness program by providing education, professional diagnosis and treatment support, all incorporated into Roadside’s overall Driver Wellness program. Read the rest of this entry

Alarming new statistics show that twenty-six per cent of Canadian adults aged 18 years and older are estimated to be at high risk for having sleep apnea, according to a large national survey, and the Canadian Lung Association urges Canadians to find out if they are at risk.

Sleep apnea is a serious breathing disorder that causes sufferers to have dozens or hundreds of breathing pauses or “apneas” per night. The survey revealed that about 7 million Canadians either have sleep apnea or are at high risk for having sleep apnea.

“It is alarming that very few of these at-risk Canadians have been assessed for sleep apnea,” says Dr. John Fleetham, an advisor to the survey and chair of the Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) Sleep Disordered Breathing Committee. The CTS is the medical arm of the Canadian Lung Association. Read the rest of this entry

Poor sleep quality, insomnia,sleep apnea, and daytime somnolence are common among recently deployed Soldiers and those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We sought to determine the prevalence of sleep complaints and sleep disorders among recently deployed Soldiers with PTSD.

The researchers analyzed the records of 80 consecutive Soldiers returning from combat and diagnosed with PTSD. We determined the rate of sleep complaints and prevalence of insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea. We compared demographic data, psychoactive medication use, psychiatric disorders and concomitant traumatic brain injury (TBI) to determine if any variables correlated with increased sleep complaints or disorders. Read the rest of this entry

Eighty-one percent of hospital patients are at high risk for obstructive sleep apnea, a Loyola University Health System study has found.  

The findings suggest that hospitals should consider giving patients a five-minute screening test to identify those who are at high risk. 

Sleep specialist Dr. Sunita Kumar and colleagues administered an eight-question obstructive sleep apnea screening questionnaire known as STOP-BANG to patients during a single day at Loyola University Hospital.

Patients were excluded if they were on a breathing tube, on sedatives or had an altered mental status. 

Of the 195 patients surveyed, 157, or 80.5 percent, were at high risk for obstructive sleep apnea, meaning they answered “Yes” to at least three questions on the questionnaire.  Read the rest of this entry

Sleep disorders come in many forms and are often misunderstood and misdiagnosed because the telltale signs — excessive snoring and daytime drowsiness — can result from a multitude of factors, including stress, obesity, work or travel schedule, anxiety, diet, medication or alcohol use or even a bad mattress or poor lighting. 

Any time we change our sleep patterns, like during the switch to or from Daylight Saving Time, our ability to rest properly is affected. But sleep deprivation and sleep disorders are year-round problems that must be properly diagnosed and addressed to preserve the health of the individual”, according to Dr. Arnold Pallay, medical director at Changebridge Medical Associates in Montville. Read the rest of this entry

New Zealand Sleep Specialists are calling for an urgent review of sleep services following the announcement that up to ten per cent of the adult population has sleep apnea, and the majority are undiagnosed.

“New Zealand Sleep Services are poorly resourced to deal with the current burden of disease. Most obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) remains unrecognised, which is of huge concern given the known consequences of untreated OSA”, says Dr Michael Hlavac, Sleep Specialist at Christchurch Hospital and Chair of the New Zealand branch of the Australasian Sleep Association.

“Sleep apnea is associated with serious medical consequences, including heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. Read the rest of this entry

As an important part of a designed research project the University of Granada researchers are going to analyse how sleep disorders like sleep apnea disorder affect risk perception in driving. To such purpose, three last-generation simulators provided by the Faculty of Psychology will be employed.

The purpose of the first study will be to analyse how a specific sleep disorder obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects risk perception in driving, as well as the efficacy of the therapies in development to treat it. Concretely, University of Granada researchers will study how different treatments for OSA improve risk perception in simulated driving. To such purpose, they employed the motorcycle simulator Honda Riding Trainer (HRT) using a multidimensional methodology (psychological, physical, behavioural and subjective measurements). Read the rest of this entry

The new local coverage determination (LCD) adherence criteria for continued reimbursement of continuous positive airway pressure after 90 days has heretofore not been validated, including the effects of the policy on care for patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

SleepApneaDisorder/ [ Press Release ]/ Fifteen specific safety recommendations were issued by the National Transportation Safety Board to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently, following its investigation into a fatal July 2009 tractor-trailer crash in which six vehicles were involved.The NTSB determined that the accident was caused by the truck driver’s fatigue, which was caused in turn by recent and acute sleep loss, disruption of his circadian rhythms due to the driver’s shift schedule and mild sleep apnea. Truck driver fatigue is one of the most common causes of truck accidents on United States highways. Read the rest of this entry