SleepApneaDisorder/[ Press Release ] / Phyhealth Corporation , today announced that it has launched a new subsidiary, Phyhealth Sleep Care Corporation (Phyhealth Sleep Care). Phyhealth Sleep Care plans to own and operate sleep care centers in key markets across the country.  The Sleep Care Centers are designed and equipped to diagnose and treat a wide variety of sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea.  

Phyhealth Sleep Care Corporation will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phyhealth Corporation. These centers will be under the direction of Mr. David Neel, a veteran of the health care industry. Phyhealth Sleep Care will open its first two centers in Colorado; a two-bed center in Longmont and a four-bed center in Denver. Phyhealth Sleep Careis completing the build out and contracting for the two locations, and both will be fully operational and accepting patients by February 8th. Read the rest of this entry

Conclusions of a recently concluded research study show that three fairly common ailments may work together to increase death risks. This new research study is aimed at determining a close inter-linkage among obesity, acid reflux disease, and sleep apnea.

Researchers believe obesity directly causes sleep apnea. Additionally, lack of sleep or sound sleep often increases the risks of other health problems like blood pressure, stress, and even heart attack.

Sleep apnea causes interrupted breathing while sleeping, and the effects of these breathing pauses may be magnified if a person has acid reflux.

Before people realize they have sleep apnea, they often wake up feeling tired, assuming it was just a bad night of sleep. Instead, sleep apnea and acid reflux disease may be the culprits.

Researchers at the Lynn Health Science Research Institute explain that these ailments may be linked to other significant health dangers as well, like depression or carelessness.

Obesity is a primary cause of sleep apnea as well, as nearly 7 of 10 individuals with sleep apnea are obese. Obesity may also lead to acid reflux which creates a big web of health problems.

PROVENT Sleep Apnea Therapy is a simple, non-invasive treatment for OSA. PROVENT Therapy is a nightly-use prescription device attached with a hypoallergenic adhesive and placed over the nostrils. PROVENT Therapy works across mild, moderate, and severe  OSA.

PROVENT Therapy utilizes a proprietary MicroValve technology developed by Ventus Medical. During inhalation, the valve opens allowing essentially normal airflow, and during exhalation, the valve closes, limiting airflow through two small openings, which increases expiratory pressure, helping to keep the airway open. Read the rest of this entry

A recently concluded research study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit has found that patients with obstructive sleep apnea who undergo surgery to improve their breathing get a better night’s sleep and therefore are less drowsy during the day. 

The study finds surgery greatly reduces daytime sleepiness – a common side effect from this disorder in which the upper airway is partially or completely blocked during sleep – when compared to other non-surgical treatments for obstructive sleep apnea. 

The retrospective study looked at 40 patients who underwent one of three surgical interventions – uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, tonsillectomy or radiofrequency ablation of the base of tongue – between January 2007 and December 2009.  Read the rest of this entry

India has it’s first sleep testing and treatment facility at Hyderabad.  For the first time in India a facility to treat sleep disorders has been set up by the Hyderabad-based Sleep Care Solutions (SCS) in collaboration with Philips Respironics. Future plans include setting up 25 more state-of-the-art sleep centres across the country.  

Although it has never been properly estimated but certainly majority of Indians are facing sleep disorders and the facililty has come up in consonance with the guidelines of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.  Read the rest of this entry

At the ”Sleep to Live Institute ” a new research study has recently concluded and it’s results give clear warnings to the sufferers of sleep apnea, “Sleep alone at your own risk!”

Dr. Robert Oexman says sleeping without a partner or roommate results in becoming oblivious to the disorder. Thus, many sleep apnea patients live their lives dealing with lethargy, high blood pressure and lack of focus during daytime, not knowing the root cause of these health issues.

According to research outcomes, there are almost 50 to 70 million people in the US who chronically suffer from sleeping disorders, their most noticeable symptom being loud snoring and waking up gasping for breath in the middle of the night. Oexman warns that if sleep apnea is left undiagnosed, there are high chances of the disorder being fatal during sleep. Read the rest of this entry

In patients with obstructive sleep apnea, a one-time dose of a nonbenzodiazepine sedative during polysomnography may improve short-term compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, researchers have observed.

“Short-term compliance may correlate with long-term compliance and interventions aimed at the initial treatment period would potentially offer the greatest benefit in adaptation to CPAP with subsequent improvements in future use,” they note in the March issue of Chest.

Poor compliance and initial intolerance to CPAP limit the therapy’s effectiveness, Dr. Jacob Collen of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., and colleagues point out, and factors that reliably predict CPAP tolerance and use are largely unknown.
Read the rest of this entry

The world’s most popular blood pressure medicine is much less effective than comparable drugs and gives patients a false sense of security, researchers said Monday.

In a review of earlier studies, they found the drug, a diuretic, or “water pill,” called hydrochlorothiazide, lowered blood pressure by only about half as much as common alternatives such as beta blockers and ACE inhibitors.

“What this study says is that it is less effective than other medications such as ACE inhibitors or calcium channel blockers,” Goldberg said. 

Goldberg said blood pressure has to be reevaluated no matter what medication a patient is taking, and if you are taking hydrochlorothiazide, you may just need additional therapy.Goldberg also said it’s important to lower your salt intake, participate in aerobic exercise and increase the amount of fruits, vegetables and whole grains you eat. If you have high blood pressure and snore, get tested for sleep apnea, she said, as that can raise your blood pressure, and treatment lowers it. [ Read The Complete Post By FoxNews  ]

In an important study that may shed light on human ability to adapt to hypoxia, or inadequate levels of oxygen, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have proven that the genome of flies exposed to long-term hypoxia are changed to permanently affect gene expression. Their findings, to be published online by the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of January 24, 2011, may lead to new targets for development of therapies for hypoxia-induced disease in humans.

The inability to sleep at night, insomnia, affects around twenty percent of people in the US. Among the elders this increases to around thirty percent. Those affected by it can suffer other physical effects from the affliction such as hypertension and accidents due to this.

A recently concluded research study has now established that there exists a surprisingly easy answer for people who suffer from insomnia.

Try to reduce the amount of time that you spend in bed. Read the rest of this entry

Sleep Apnea of prematurity is one of the most common diagnoses in the NICU. Because resolution of sleep apnea is a usual precondition for discharge from the hospital, different monitoring practices might affect length of stay for premature infants.

The research was centered on the objective to compare the proportion of 33 to 34 weeks’ gestational age infants diagnosed with sleep apnea in different NICUs and to assess whether variability in length of stay would be affected by the rate of documented sleep apnea.

This was a prospective cohort study of moderately preterm infants who survived to discharge in 10 NICUs in Massachusetts and California. ^{Read the rest of this entry}

NovaSom Inc., formerly Sleep Solutions Inc., a maker of a home-based sleep apnea testing devices filed a notice today with the SEC that shows it intends to raise $15 million in debt, and is already more than halfway toward its goal.

What’s sleep apnea?

It is “a sleep disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of abnormally low breathing, during sleep.” It can cause a ton of other health complications if not treated.

Most sleep apnea studies take place in a clinic or hospital setting and involve use of special devices, but are conducting over the course of one night’s sleep. NovaSom’s device is meant to be used in the home over the course of several nights, and the company says the home setting contributes to more accurate diagnoses.

The company says it works with physicians and insurers to prescribe the use of its device. It claims it’s been used to test 60,000 people so far.

The market for sleep apnea diagnostic equipment sales is potentially vast, since it’s a problem for many who have trouble sleeping but don’t ever get a diagnosis. An estimated 18 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, but NovaSom believes 85 percent haven’t been diagnosed.

A research concluded recently with an objective to determine the cost-effectiveness of treatment with caffeine compared with placebo for sleep apnea of prematurity in infants with birth weights less than 1250 g, from birth through 18 to 21 months’ corrected age.

The researchers undertook a retrospective economic evaluation of the cost per survivor without neurodevelopmental impairment by using individual-patient data from the Caffeine for Sleep Apnea of Prematurity clinical trial (N = 1869). Read the rest of this entry

A recently concluded U.S.research study established that studying the sleeping behavior of children might help point out who are at high risks of developing respiratory disorders after surgical removal of their adenoids and tonsils. The research involves studying the medical records in a pediatric hospital of as many as 1,131 children who had undergone surgery.

The researchers discovered that there were 151 patients who participated in polysomnography (sleep study) before going under the knife. Out of that number, 23 later developed respiratory problems. The same number of children scored much higher than their healthy counterparts on the apnea-hyopnea index.

The index is designed to measure how severe a person is suffering from sleep apnea, as well as the gravity of disruptions they experience while sleeping and low levels of oxygen in their blood. Meanwhile, the children who scored high on the hyopnea index were found to take very shallow breaths and thus exhibited severely low respiratory rates.

SleepApneaDisorder/[Press Release]/MINNEAPOLIS/ Jan. 22, 2011 / Cardiac Concepts, Inc. announced today the first U.S. clinical implant of the RespiCardia® System at The Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio. The RespiCardia System is a fully implantable device that is designed to restore more natural breathing patterns in patients with central sleep apnea, a sleep disorder characterized by a lack of respiratory effort by the diaphragm. The procedure was performed by Dr. Ralph Augostini, Assistant Professor of Clinical, Cardiovascular Medicine at The Ohio State University, on a 61 year old male patient with a history of central sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation.

This was the first U.S. implant in a global pilot study of this novel therapy for treating a large and growing health problem. “The first U.S. implant of the RespiCardia System brings concept to reality,” said William T. Abraham, M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of Cardiovascular Medicine at The Ohio State University. “The potential of this therapy is substantial, considering the very high prevalence of central sleep apnea in heart failure patients and in those with various neurological disorders.” It is estimated that approximately 35-40% of all heart failure patients have central sleep apnea. With the incidence of heart failure on the rise, there is even greater emphasis on diagnosing and treating this serious clinical problem. Read the rest of this entry