[Mahler9th]

I have been learning about sleep apnea and CPAP for the past decade. There is still a lot of misinformation about both out there and I encourage folks to take sleep apnea seriously.

It is important to understand the relationship between snoring and sleep apnea, and that there are two basics types of the latter. It is also important to realize that the obstructive type of sleep apnea (OSA) may be due to several causes.

It is important to understand the symptoms and that they may be very similar to those from other causes, which can make it difficult to diagnose, and that not all sleep studies are equal.

The morbidity associated with untreated sleep apnea is not trivial. In fact, there are studies that show a significant shortening of life expectancy. Perhaps a decade of life lost. The biochemical changes can be profound over time. And then of course there are productivity and relationship issues that result from a lack of quality sleep. The latter may be far more common than those caused by snoring.

It is important to realize that although there are numerous "tools" for assessing sleep quality in the consumer space, they are not appropriate for those seeking true answers. We will see a proliferation of these tools in years to come, but their safety and more importantly here, efficacy will not provide the sensitivity and specificity needed for proper medical intervention. Again, even with highly trained medical professionals in sleep centers, you can get different answers that may lead down inappropriate paths. This is critical to understand.

My professional network includes folks that have been involved with the development of CPAP and related therapies and surgical procedures both on the clinical side and on the commercial side. This is a very tough area within medicine. In fact I would say it is one of the toughest.

I am pretty sure that patient compliance with CPAP is right around 50%. And numbers can be lower with certain groups of patients. Some medical professionals including those that actually provide the machines and train the patients are better than others. Best to work with folks interested in providing closed-loop support, working with the patient on an ongoing basis to ensure optimal therapy. I think some track their compliance at well over 90%. How do they know? Some/many of the machines keep track of use frequency and other parameters and have memory cards that can be shared with clinical caregivers.

I do not have sleep apnea, but my wife was just diagnosed and will be starting therapy soon. I think at least three of the guys I race with (of a pool of about 50) are on CPAP therapy... and those are just the ones I casually know about.

This is serious business.