Posted by GBoogie on April 18, 2002 at 20:20:45:

In Reply to: Re: alzheimers and sleep apnea posted by SGS on April 18, 2002 at 16:38:23:

I respectfully disagree. I think there are studies that do show a link between Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Sleep Apnea (OSA). Of course, definitions matter. I'm not sure they have shown a causal link, but there are studies that show AD and OSA occur together in a lot of people. People with AD have OSA more often than people that don't have AD and people with OSA will have AD more often than people that don't have OSA. Maybe not a smoking gun, but I think it warrants more attention.

Furthermore, there are also 3 articles that I am aware of that document cases where the patient had some form of Sleep Disordered Breathing (SDB) and dementia. When the SDB was diagnosed and treated the dementia went away. 1 person had no OSA but did have nocturnal hypoxia. 1 person had a plain vanilla case of severe OSA and 1 person had OSA with other complications.

Of course, one problem is that diagnosing AD is difficult. There is no test for Alzheimer's like there is for a broken bone or diabetes. Diagnosis can only really be made by looking at the patient's brain after they die. While you are alive, the doctors have to take a guess, albeit an educated guess. I'm not sure if there are any studies to see how accurate the diagnosis of AD is and I'm not sure I'd want to participate.

I happen to think there are a lot of people misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's that really have some form of Sleep Disordered Breathing, whether it is Sleep Apnea or something else. I am very prejudiced because I think my Mom also has reversible dementia due to OSA, just that we can't make CPAP work for her on a reliable basis. But that's a whole other story.

If you'd like to look up some of the articles I mentioned and read them for yourself, here is some help finding them. I'm too tired to properly type the citations. Use www.pubmed.gov and some keywords and you'll be off to the races.

Donald J. Bliwise wrote "Is Sleep Apnea a Cause of Reversible Dementia in Old Age?" published in the November 1996 Journal of the American Geritrics Society. It's a great discussion of the topic and it mentions plenty of other studies.

The "Dealberto Study" appears in the same issue as the Bliwise article. It was the largest population study to date of people with OSA and AD.

Professor Scheltens wrote "Sleep apnea syndrome presenting with cognitive impairment" in the January 1991 issue of Neurology. That's a case study. Plain vanilla OSA.

Steiner, Ward and Ali wrote "Dementia and Snoring" for the Jan. 16, 1999 issue of The Lancet. Another case study. OSA plus.

Sandberg wrote "Dementia and Hypoxia" for the 15 December 1988 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The nocturnal hypoxia story.

If the original question really was "The doctors say my parent has Alzheimer's but I just got diagnosed with OSA and I started thinking to myself - Mom/Dad always used to snore like a buzzsaw and they were always tired all the time. Now they are forgetful, but not really flaky. I wonder if I should get him/her a sleep test?" I'd say yes, get them a sleep test.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: Re: alzheimers and sleep apnea justwondering 13:55 4/19/02 (1)
  • Re: Re: Re: Re: alzheimers and sleep apnea GBoogie 15:46 4/20/02 (0)

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