The importance of suspecting sleep apnoea as a common cause of excessive daytime sleepiness: further experience from the diagnosis and management of 19 patients.

Over an 18 month period, 19 patients were referred for assessment of excessive daytime sleepiness and/or loud snoring. Respiratory studies during sleep were performed in 14 of these patients with additional features such as disturbed sleep, observed apnoea during sleep, morning headache, mental and personality changes, hypertension and cardiac failure. Nocturnal respiratory studies undertaken for periods of 4-8 hours confirmed a diagnosis of the Sleep Apnoea Syndrome in eight patients. In these patients apnoeas, lasting from 30-144 seconds, occurred frequently during sleep (from 35-291 episodes per patient). In one severely affected patient, tracheostomy abolished all symptoms. The use of conservative therapy such as weight loss, protriptyline or a neck collar, highlighted the inadequacies of current medical treatment. Awareness of the symptom complex and potential complications of the Sleep Apnoea Syndrome is important because the diagnosis may easily be missed if the patient presents with one or two isolated complaints.