Pediatric sleep apnea is a sleep disorder where a child briefly stops breathing while sleeping, often due to a blockage in the airway. The most common cause is large tonsils and adenoids in the upper airway. It affects 3 to 6 percent of children and is associated with repetitive narrowing of the airways.
The primary symptom of OSA is habitual snoring, which may affect up to 27 of children with a median revolving around 10-12. Every time a child stops breathing, even briefly, the brain awakens slightly, resulting in poor quality of sleep and potentially leading to other health problems, including poor growth. Rarely, pediatric obstructive sleep apnea can cause a failure to grow in infants and young children.
Untreated sleep apnea can be dangerous and affect a child’s growth and development. Some children will have lingering symptoms as they age and may need more treatment. This can impact cognitive functions, affecting a child’s ability to concentrate, learn, and retain information. As a result, obstructive sleep apnea can hurt school performance. Teachers and others may think a child has ADHD or learning problems.
Obstructive sleep apnea can also cause less oxygen in the blood than normal, making it hard for air and oxygen to flow. If left untreated, obstructive sleep apnea can cause poor growth (“failure to thrive”), high blood pressure, and heart problems.
Research suggests that obstructive sleep apnea may have a significant impact on autism symptoms, anxiety levels, and depressive symptoms in children. Treatment can help children overcome sleep apnea symptoms and improve their overall health and well-being.
📹 Expert discusses impacts of sleep apnea on children
ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – Sleep apnea is not just for adults; children can be effected by this disease as well. Children need …
Can sleep apnea stunt a child’s growth?
Pediatric obstructive sleep apnea is a rare condition that can cause a failure to grow in infants and young children, increasing the risk of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, prediabetes, and other heart and blood vessel conditions. It is also rare for children with certain genetic conditions to have serious symptoms that can lead to death. However, complications can be managed with treatment.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has accredited the treatment of persistent pediatric obstructive sleep apnea. The condition is rare, and a gift to Mayo Clinic can have a 5X impact on AI innovation.
What happens if sleep apnea goes untreated in kids?
Childhood sleep apnea is a common condition that disrupts a child’s breathing pattern during sleep due to obstructions in the airway or a lack of communication between the brain and breathing muscles. This can cause the child to wake up frequently in the middle of the night, similar to hearing a phone ring during sleep. These interruptions can affect the child’s sleep pattern, leading to increased daytime fatigue. Untreated sleep apnea can be dangerous and require lifelong management throughout adulthood. It is essential to address this condition to ensure a healthy and healthy child’s growth and development.
Can sleep apnea cause autism?
Maternal sleep apnea during gestation has been demonstrated to induce neuronal and behavioral changes in offspring, which may ultimately result in the development of autism. The study by Vanderplow et al., published in PLOS Biology, posits that maternal sleep apnea may increase the risk of autism-like changes in male offspring. The research was published in Autism Research Review International, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2022.
Do children with sleep apnea grow out of it?
Sleep apnea can affect children, but not all may grow out of it. It can go unnoticed until it becomes severe in adulthood, putting the child at risk of serious health conditions like stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, depression, memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, and various cancers. If you suspect your child has sleep apnea, discuss treatment options with a healthcare provider. If diagnosed with OSA, the next steps depend on the severity of the condition.
Can sleep apnea cause low IQ?
Sleep apnea can cause an average IQ loss of 8-10 points in children, potentially placing them one standard deviation below normal. This could be due to the untreated sleep apnea, which could lead to a decrease in gray matter volume and potentially impact cognitive development. The exact nature of gray matter reductions and their potential reversibility remain unexplored, but altered regional gray matter is likely impacting brain functions and cognitive development potential.
The exact nature of these reductions and their potential reversibility remain virtually unexplored. The authors suggest that further research is needed to understand the impact of sleep apnea on cognitive development.
Can sleep apnea cause brain damage in children?
A study comparing children aged 7-11 with moderate or severe obstructive sleep apnea to those who slept normally found significant reductions in gray matter brain cells involved in movement, memory, emotions, speech, perception, decision making, and self-control in several regions of the brains of children with sleep apnea. This suggests a strong connection between sleep disturbances, which affect up to five percent of all children, and the loss of neurons or delayed neuronal growth in the developing brain.
The extensive reduction of gray matter in children with a treatable disorder encourages parents to consider early detection and therapy. The study’s senior author, Leila Kheirandish-Gozal, MD, said the images of gray matter changes were striking. While there is no precise guide to correlate gray matter loss with specific cognitive deficits, there is clear evidence of widespread neuronal damage or loss compared to the general population.
Can sleep apnea cause learning disabilities?
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing, leading to fragmented sleep and low blood oxygen levels. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common type in both children and adults. Understanding the connection between OSA and academic performance is crucial for parents to help their children navigate the educational journey successfully. OSA is often underdiagnosed, despite its simple diagnosis once action is taken. Research suggests millions of Americans could have OSA and not know it, indicating that many children and teens also go without a proper diagnosis. As of now, over 10 of children have OSA.
Can sleep apnea cause Behavioural problems in children?
Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is a serious condition that can lead to serious complications such as failure to thrive, obesity, hypertension, and mental retardation in children. Early detection and intervention can help reduce these complications. Children with OSAS often experience neurocognitive deficits, poor attention, and poor learning. Sleep-disordered berating is common in the lowest grade school performance children, possibly due to hypoxia, hypoxemia, or sleep fragmentation.
The primary treatment for OSAS is adenotonsillectomy, which can improve children’s neurobehavior and quality of life. Most children tend to improve one year after surgery, with improvements in school performance, attention, behavior, and cognitive function tests. Obese children have more persistent OSAS and poor quality of life scores after surgery.
Pediatric polysomnography is a valuable tool for predicting the improvement or persistence of OSAS after surgery. It has been suggested that children with neurological, neurodevelopmental disorders, genetic syndromes, obesity, inborn error of metabolism, and craniofacial syndrome could benefit from the procedure. Preoperative and postoperative polysomnography can help predict the improvement or persistence of OSAS in children.
In summary, OSAS is a serious condition that can be managed with early detection and intervention. Early detection and intervention can help reduce the risk of complications and improve the quality of life for children with OSAS.
Can the brain recover from sleep apnea?
A study published in the journal Sleep found that severe, untreated sleep apnea patients experienced significant reduction in white matter fiber integrity in multiple brain areas, leading to impairments in cognition, mood, and daytime alertness. However, 12 months of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy led to almost complete reversal of white matter abnormalities. Treatment also improved cognitive tests, mood, alertness, and quality of life. The study’s lead author, Vincenza Castronovo, PhD, said that structural neural injury in the brain of obstructive sleep apnea patients can be reversible with effective treatment.
Can sleep apnea cause developmental delays?
Severe sleep apnea in infants can lead to feeding difficulties, developmental delays, and school performance issues. Sleep medicine specialists, plastic surgeons, and otolaryngologists use physical exams, sleep studies, and visual examinations to diagnose sleep apnea and recommend effective treatment. Symptoms may include snoring, restlessness, bed-wetting, and behavioral issues. The physical exam helps identify and address these symptoms.
What is life expectancy with sleep apnea?
Untreated sleep apnea can significantly impact a person’s health, leading to increased stress and panic. Research shows that untreated sleep apnea can shorten life expectancy by several years and increase the risk of death by 17 through both short-term and long-term health issues. Short-term effects include excessive daytime sleepiness, interrupted sleep, reduced deep sleep, poor sleep quality, fatigue, and lack of concentration.
Chronic long-term issues, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cognitive issues, and early-onset dementia, can result from untreated sleep apnea. These issues can be experienced at much younger ages than typical.
📹 Excess Deaths at Night – Obstructive Sleep Apnea Explained Clearly
(This video was recorded on October 26, 2022) Roger Seheult, MD is the co-founder and lead professor at …
I’m a 53yr old woman and I’ve recently been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea (112 per hr), and just received myCPAP/APAP machine and I absolutely hate it!!! I’m obese, my BMI is 34.7 and should be 25 I blame this condition on my weight. I’m on a mission to take off this weight and praying that it rectifies this health problem. This has been a huge wake up call for me, other than extreme fatigue and excess snoring, my blood pressure has been fine and had no clue I was at this point. Wish me luck 🙏🏼
22 years on CPAP and I’m pretty sure it saved my life. I was a mess. Slept all the time but felt awful. Has acid reflux at night due to my chest heaving to get air. Morning headaches. My first night with CPAP I dreamed in color, woke up like I had never felt in years. I score 95-100 points every night with really low events/hr. These newer CPAPs are fantastic.
My CPAP is my best friend. Took an entire month till we worked together well. Watched articles on my specific machine to learn how to adjust heat, humidity, build up of airflow and resistance to breathing against the pressure. I practiced while perusal TV. I did have periods of feeling suffocation/claustrophobia. I had to calm my breathing to restart. A lot of it was mental. You have to decide you don’t want to die.
I am the youngest of 7, and I am ancient at 60 years old, lol. Several of my siblings and I went on a vacation and I shared a room with an older sister (who in a previous life was a respiratory therapist). She kindly barked my name to get me to wake up, she was startled and was getting ready to do a precordial thump on my chest! I learned the next day that 5 of my siblings suffer from moderate to severe sleep apnea and all use CPAP machines. I will be getting this addressed in the coming days. Thank you, this article was extremely well done and incredibly helpful!
I’ve had obstructive sleep apnea since 2016 but it took some time to diagnose. I shared a cabin once with a friend and noticed irregular breathing from where she was sleeping, so stood there listening and I knew something was horribly wrong. Told her to get help from her doctor and the following year she thanked me for saving her life. It turns out she had been walking around with severe OSA and had no idea until I pointed out her breathing pattern and urged her to seek medical attention for it. She’s doing much better now.
A friend of mine passed away years ago due to sleep apnea. It was so bad for him he could only sleep for a few minutes at a time and because of his exhaustion he would fall asleep during conversation or game play. I lost a friend because we couldn’t afford to get him help 😔 If you or a love one is suffering from sleep apnea, don’t let it kill you or the one you love. Take my word for it, you think they will be there tomorrow and then they are gone before you can say goodbye 😢
Both of my parents had untreated obstructive sleep apnea and died early in the morning. I now have OSA as well and recently started on CPAP and cannot believe how much better I feel. I was going through the days exhausted and thought it was just because of aging but I now have energy to spare. As an unexpected positive side effect my acid reflux has also greatly improved which proves to me that GERD and OSA are related. If you even think you might have OSA then get tested and on CPAP if you do as it is a life changer.
I would fall asleep at red lights and roll into the person in front of me not realizing it. I thought it was them rolling back into me. I was also getting dizzy spells while standing so I had my heart checked out ok. Then I did a sleep study and found out I was having micro sleeps. I got a cpap and lost 15lbs. Completely changed my life, sleep better, more awake then ever and my blood pressure dropped to normal level. I recommend getting checked out.
Diagnosed with severe central sleep apnea with 65+ issues/hour. Had an mri to rule out issues in my brain and wore heart monitor to discover the reason my heart was skipping a beat. I’m on a bi-pap st machine and I’m convinced it saved my life. Nothing showed up on the mri and my heart issues were because of untreated sleep apnea. When I read others say how much they hate their machines just makes me sad. I am finally getting back on top of my health and would not be if I didn’t have this machine.
Physician education is important. I had undiagnosed sleep apnea that was impacting my memory to the point where I couldn’t function at work. I saw my Kaiser doc several times on this issue and even brought my husband to also say what he was seeing with me. The doc ran through the same questions to see if I had beginnings of dementia/Alzheimer’s. I had to count backwards from 100 by 7’s etc. When I passed the test he pronounced I had no memory problems at all. He diagnosed me with stress. I lost the job due to my inability to track info and my memory function. I found another job. Got new health insurance. I went to a UC Davis doc. That doc sent me to neurologist. In his exam, he asked one simple critical question, “Do you feel rested when you wake up?” I said, “never.” That got the ball rolling for sleep study. Yeah- sure enough, severe sleep apnea. CPAP has made such a huge improvement in my daily living. I wish my Kaiser doc had asked that simple question and was educated on different presentations of sleep deprivation. You can’t lay down new memories if you’re not sleeping.
I’m a bit overweight but a muscular, very active and physically fit 60 year old with perfect metabolic and lipid panels, however I didn’t feel great. Much to my surprise I was diagnosed with OSA earlier this year and my OSA was made much worse when I consumed alcohol. Since starting CPAP in April and dramatically cutting back on alcohol it has been life changing. I feel way better, sleeping way better, blood pressure is perfect now and my heart rate is low and beats very quietly. I love my CPAP… is that a bad thing to love a machine? 🙂
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea when I was in my twenties, 20 years ago, in a lab. I received a CPAP machine, started getting restful sleep, and lost 20lbs as a result because I wasn’t exhausted anymore. Then I moved to a different state, and it has been a real struggle to convince my new doctors that I had sleep apnea. Home tests didn’t show that I had it, so I insisted on sleep lab studies. The sleep lab studies showed mild sleep apnea, that was borderline normal. But I know the difference in my health in sleeping with a CPAP machine and without, so I kept insisting that I needed a CPAP. I recently learned that a friend of mine was diagnosed with an Uppper Airway Resistance Syndrome in California, and started looking into it. From what she told me, this syndrome is harder to diagnose because it doesn’t show up as constant sleep-wake up cycle, rather the brain doesn’t allow the body to fall into deep sleep because the patient’s throat is so narrow. I suspect that I might have this, because I notice that without my CPAP my sleep is not deep. It’s such a light “surface” sleep, I remain aware of my surroundings. I wish more attention was paid to patients like me, women who are not overweight, and who don’t manifest as “classic” sleep apnea patients. Interestingly enough, I didn’t seem to get much push back from my insurance company. It’s the doctor’s offices and their sleep technicians who fight, argue, and gaslight like their life depends on it. I am disturbed by the fact that without my vigorous and aggressive insistence, I would not get the care that I need.
About 12 years ago I started to notice that I was a little tired during the day. The tired increased until I would sleep my entire weekends away. I thought that I may have chronic fatigue syndrome. Eight years ago I had a heart attack. Lately, I noticed that I have been getting tired during the off and my blood pressure has been out of control. My doctor asked if I snore and sent my to be checked for sleep apnea. Was just tested positive and look forward to having this treated so I can have more energy, better health,and going for long walks and losing weight. I’m 65 and just started my semi retirement. Thank for the information.
I was a very loud snorer and my GP suspected sleep apnea, he had me go to a sleep clinic. I turned out that my problem was in my nose, due to a deviated septum. I had surgery to correct the septum, my post surgery recovery took about ten days, the first week of which was very sore and painful. After that it was a massive improvement, I slept better and did not get so tired in the day.
I don’t think I’ve ever had such an emotional reaction to such a straight forward informative article as I did with this. I was diagnosed at 36 and I’m now 40. The difference from morning one after first use of the cpap machine was transformative. I was about to have the energy I use to have and managed to start turning my health around again in a serious way. This apnea is no joke. I was teaching parenting classes at the time and shared my story as part of the taking care of yourself to be able to handle parenting better part of the classes I did. I think I helped a good amount of people get checked and diagnosed. It was going great until my mental health started going south for a smattering of reasons in the middle of the pandemic. I sometimes don’t make it to my cpap in time before the apnea gets me. Sometimes I wake up with the mask my hand never having put it in when I got to it. Along with physical health and using the cpap it seems to me that mental health is just as important of a factor. Each of these factors need to be in place to properly fight against the apnea. If one fails it seems to have a compounding effect and causes the other factors to crumble as well. Thank you for this article
6:34 yes! 100 % true. I work in a hospital and most of our Code Blues happen between 0300 and 0500h. I was recently talking to my co workers about it. Again, I studied that our heart is greatly affected by the Circadian rhythm. So for people with heart disease, then adding a disorder such as OSA and you have the perfect combination for high mortality risk.
I’m a hospital based internist and I’ve been diagnosing OSA for the better part of my 18yr career – significant treatment protocols are impacted by poor sleep that result in acute on chronic cardiopulmonary disease states that is resistant to treatment or results in frequent readmissions, including resistant HTN, afib, allodynia/hyoeralgesia, resistant DM, Sz disorders and intractable migraines, resistant depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s and dementia, behavioral disturbances, and delirium. The list goes on and on, even in the acute setting and it’s critical to recognize. Also, respiratory mechanics impacted by musculoskeletal issues and constipation all result in reduced diaphragmatic excursion which is even more critical in patients with OSA. As a healthcare system in the US, we are way behind in addressing these foundational aspects of health and disease. Let’s keep diagnosing and treating the body the way it deserves to be helped. Everyday.
A surgery last summer was postphoned for me due to need for a sleep study during pre-op clearance. Then getting CPAP equipment took over 50 days with that Phillips recall. I was upset about the postphoned surgery, but after learning more about sleep apnea, heart, post anesthesia, in recovery room and the thought of discharge to home without CPAP equipment was not recommended. This is a subject that needs much more coverage in preemptive medical care!!!!
Thank you for this! I’m 61, 155, 6’1 and was waking up with massive “hangover” headaches and waking up gasping, not breathing. Been on cpap for two years. It’s been a difficult journey but getting better. I tried all the mask designs and settled on a full mask, swapped to a longer hose so I wasn’t yanking the machine and adjusted the humidity and pressure until I was naturally breathing in and out with the assist.