Historical Profiles of MayoThe Effect of Snoring and Obstructive Sleep Apnea on the Sleep Quality of Bed Partners
Section snippets
Methods
From referrals to the Sleep Disorders Center at Mayo Clinic Rochester, we recruited married couples in which 1 member (referred to herein as the patient) was undergoing polysomnography for clinically suspected OSA. Couples were excluded if either partner had a medical disorder other than snoring or if OSA in the patient would likely interfere with sleep continuity.
The couples underwent simultaneous nocturnal polysomnography while sleeping for 1 night in a queen-sized bed in the sleep
Results
A total of 14 couples were enrolled in the study. Complete data were available for 10 of the couples. Polysomnographic data for the initial 4 spouses were lost because of technical difficulties in creation of the unique recording montage used in this study.
All the patients in this study were male. Nine of the 10 patients demonstrated mild to severe OSA with AHIs ranging from 6 to 75. One patient had positional OSA and was considered to have nonpositional upper airway resistance syndrome based
Discussion
The potential impact of bed partner sleep disturbance is substantial. At the time of the 1990 census, there were 50,708,322 married couples in the United States.7 Obstructive sleep apnea, if defined as an AHI of 15 or higher, occurs in 9% and 4% of adult (30–60 years old) men and women, respectively.1 If we assume (1) that couples spend 8 hours per night sleeping together, (2) that the prevalence of OSA in the general married population is the mean of the male and female values (6.5%), and (3)
Acknowledgments
We thank Walter Brehm, MS, for performing the statistical analysis and the technicians at the Sleep Disorders Center for conducting the polysomnography and scoring the patient studies.
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2020, Journal of Psychosomatic ResearchCitation Excerpt :These observations are in keeping with research emphasizing the bidirectional influence between sleep and relationships [17] present in both healthy as well as individuals with sleep disorders, including OSA [18]. For instance, OSA has been shown to negatively impact the quality of the relationship between the patient and their partner, while OSA treatment was shown to improve it [10,14–16,19–22]. In fact, adherence to CPAP treatment has been associated with improved relationship quality reported by patients as well as by spouses/partners [10,20].
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Dr Beninati is now with the Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland AFB, Tex.