Surgery need no longer be a second line of treatment for persons with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a serious condition that is often marked by slowing of breathing due to an airway collapse.
Ahead of World Sleep Day on Friday (March 17), Dr Seemab Shaikh, founder national president of the Indian Association of Surgeons for Sleep Apnea and city-based senior consultant ENT surgeon with a special interest in sleep disorders, told The Indian Express that research in the field of sleep surgeries in the last two decades has been tremendous.
There are simple evidence-based procedures for OSA and data shows that it is highly effective. “Of course, medical treatment like continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), positional therapies and weight loss have their own place whenever there are indications to take up these options. There have been several instances where people are not compliant with CPAP machines and drop-out from treatment of almost 30-40 per cent has been witnessed after a few years,” Dr Shaikh said.
He pointed out that there are procedures that can help preserve the airway muscle and with the help of sutures along the side walls of the pharynx aid in strengthening the palate. “It’s like a tonsillectomy surgery and a little extension to that so that it helps open up the airway for better breathing at night. These are simple surgeries with a few stitches,” Dr Shaikh said.
OSA has been on the rise in the last few years due to obesity and lifestyle issues. This chronic sleep deprivation has led to other health issues and there are related disorders like depression that need to be looked into, he advised.
So much so that a new study ‘How India Sleeps’ released by LocalCircles, a community social media platform, found that 55 per cent of Indians get less than six hours of uninterrupted sleep daily with 21 per cent of them getting less than four hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Sixty-one per cent of those surveyed said the “need to use the washroom once or more during sleep” disrupted their sleep; 20 per cent shared that sleep apnea doesn’t allow them to sleep for eight hours straight while others cited reasons like late bedtime and early morning schedules, external sounds, mosquitoes, calls and messages, among others, that disrupted their sleep.
“In the study, 28 per cent of Indians surveyed said their sleep quality has deteriorated post the COVID pandemic,” said Sachin Taparia, founder of LocalCircles that conducted the online survey across 309 districts in the country fetching 39,000 responses.
Lifestyle changes are very important to manage this chronic disorder. What also helps is early detection and intervention that can save the patient from a lot of neurological and cardiovascular complications. “Strokes, cardiac arrest and hypertension can be prevented if the OSA disorder that impacts quality of life due to chronic sleep deprivation can be picked up early,” he adds.
