Researchers claim they have developed a way for thousands of Aussies with sleep apnoea to avoid wearing a breathing machine while they sleep.
Adelaide-based Professor Danny Eckert said a combination of therapies they experimented with got “impressive results” among patients who cannot tolerate the often cumbersome Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine.
CPAP machines deliver constant air pressure through a mask or nose piece to help people breathe while they sleep, but common problems with the device include noise, discomfort, stuffy nose or dry mouth.
Eckert, a director at the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, claimed the CPAP route will “fail” for at least 50 per cent of people with sleep apnoea, a serious medical condition experienced by an estimated 5 per cent of Australians.
As people age, sleep apnoea is more common, especially if they are overweight.
The institute’s research found that oral appliances, or dental splints, should be the first step for those with obstructive sleep apnoea.
Rather than patients first being directed to CPAP machines, Eckert said his team “flipped the model on its head” and went immediately to splints, which hold a person’s tongue in place so their airway stays open while they sleep.
“This tends to be much better tolerated than CPAP, Eckert said, but added it only works in about 50 per cent of people.
If the dental device did not solve the breathing issues, Eckert’s team added alternate therapies such as oxygen therapy.
“Novel medications” were also sometimes used, informed by the findings of a detailed sleep study which “tells us exactly” why each person suffers from obstructive sleep apnoea, he said.
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Those combinations fixed almost all of the 50 per cent of the remaining patients, he said.
Anyone in the research sample group still struggling to breathe at night was treated with a CPAP machine, “but only as a last resort”.
“Using this new approach, we were able to treat almost all participants and only a few required CPAP,” Eckert said.
“Essentially, we believe this outlines a whole new way of treating sleep apnoea.”
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People with sleep apnoea may snore, wake up gasping and feel tired during the day.
In severe cases, someone’s sleep can be interrupted hundreds of times each night with long pauses in breathing.
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