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Main Category: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children’s Health;??ADHD
Article Date: 01 Apr 2013 – 11:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Sleep Apnea In Kids Linked To Behavioral Problems
Obstructive sleep apnea, a common type of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), has been linked to elevated rates of ADHD-like behavioral issues in kids, in addition to learning and adaptive problems.
The findings were published in the journal Sleep and came about after a five-year study which analyzed data from a longitudinal cohort called the Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study (TuCASA).
The study assessed Caucasian and Hispanic kids ranging in age from 6 to 11 years to measure the incidence and prevalence of SDB and its consequences on neurobehavioral functioning.
Michelle Perfect, PhD, the study’s lead author and assistant professor in the school psychology program in the department of disability and psychoeducational studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said:
“This study provides some helpful information for medical professionals consulting with parents about treatment options for children with SDB that, although it may remit, there are considerable behavioral risks associated with continued SDB. School personnel should also consider the possibility that SDB contributes to difficulties with hyperactivity, learning and behavioral and emotional deregulation in the classroom.”
The study consisted of 263 kids who participated in a sleep study and a neurobehavioral test of assessments which included youth and parent-documented rating scales.
The outcomes revealed that 23 kids had incident sleep apnea that developed during the trial period, while 21 kids had persistent sleep apnea for the entire length of the study. An additional 41 children who started out with sleep apnea stopped having breathing issues during sleep when examined at the five-year follow-up.
In children with incident sleep apnea, the risk of having behavioral issues was four to five times higher. In kids with persistent sleep apnea, that risk was six times higher.
Compared with children who never experienced SDB, those with sleep apnea were more inclined to have parent-documented issues in the areas of: attentiondisruptive behaviorshyperactivitysocial competencyself-carecommunicationKids with persistent sleep apnea were shown to be seven times more likely to have parent-documented learning issues and three times more likely to earn grades of C or under.
Research reported at the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in 2010, revealed that the academic grades of children with sleep apnea are worse than students who do not have sleep-related breathing problems.
The authors noted that this was the first sleep-related study to utilize a standardized survey to measure adaptive functioning in normal youths with and without SDB.
Perfect concluded, “Even though SDB appears to decline into adolescence, taking a wait and see approach is risky and families and clinicians alike should identify potential treatments.”
Sleep apnea is prevalent in approximately two percent of healthy children, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Sleep apnea in kids of this age is generally due to oversized tonsils and adenoids. Most of these children with sleep apnea also experience loud snoring.
Treatment choices include the removal of the adenoids or tonsils via surgery and the use of continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP).
Written by Kelly Fitzgerald
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
Visit our sleep / sleep disorders / insomnia section for the latest news on this subject. “Risk of Behavioral and Adaptive Functioning Difficulties in Youth with Previous and Current Sleep Disordered Breathing”
Michelle M. Perfect, PhD; Kristen Archbold, PhD; James L. Goodwin, PhD; Deborah Levine-Donnerstein, PhD; Stuart F. Quan, MD
Sleep, April 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.5665/sleep.2536 Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
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posted by AlaChick on 1 Apr 2013 at 12:52 pm
It’s probably been 18 or 20 years ago, but I clearly remember a “48 Hours” episode — one during the first or second season — when Dan Rather did a story about a seven-year-old boy with ADHD. He was reading on a kindergarten level and was on a lot of medication.
His mother had taken him to his pediatrician, but the doctor did not do anything except prescribe medication. Finally, she noticed the boy snored a lot, so she got him to a sleep study. The study indicated he had severe sleep apnea (he was not overweight), and was waking up something like 30 times an hour. The doctor who did the sleep study concluded the child was severely sleep-deprived and suggested she take him to a pediatric ENT. The mother did so and the ENT diagnosed the child with very large tonsils and adenoids. He did surgery to remove them.
Rather went back to the home six weeks later. The boy was sleeping well, and was reading at grade level, with prospects of going to an advanced reading level. His mother said his behavior changed completely. He was able to sit still, focus on his work and his teacher had not called her once to talk with her about his behavior. He was a different child, she said.
Some 40 years ago, when I was a kid, it was commonplace to have one’s tonsils and/or adenoids out. I remember one child being called “hyperactive” the whole time I was in school. Then, the medical “experts” decided having tonsils and adenoids removed was unnecessary and the practice went out of fashion. Cases of ADD and ADHD skyrocketed. Every other kid is ADD, it seems.
These disorders do exist, but they persist beyond childhood, and they are not common in adults.
Parents need to look at taking their ADD children to a pediatric ENT who will pay attention to whether greatly enlarged tonsils and adenoids may be contributing to sleep apnea, and thus, ADD/ADHD.
I’m glad this is finally coming to light.
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posted by Sam on 1 Apr 2013 at 12:12 pm
This exact research has been done in a lot of centers years back…I did the same one in the 90s. Not sure why these same themes are researched again and again…a waste of precious funding resources towards being a copy paste job from old journals. ADHD and sleep apnea in children due to enlarged tonsils is textbook!
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posted by Lifelong Apnea on 1 Apr 2013 at 12:08 pm
At 47, I’ve had sleep apnea since I was a very small child. I tested 1% of human intelligence and entered college at 10. We didn’t know what apnea was back then. Thanks to our tremendous healthcare system and booming economic times since the 80s, I haven’t really been able to have any surgery to correct it, but if I sleep flat on my back, I can die. I’ll probably be dropped by my insurance company when I finally do go for formal diagnosis and treatment. Screw you medical establishment and overreaching government!
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