How common are serious sleep problems?
Sleep medicine is not confined to rare respiratory or neurological conditions. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is an extremely common condition with 1-2% of middle aged men suffering–about the same number that have insulin-dependent diabetes.4 OSA is not just important to those interested in sleep. Diabetes mellitus, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) all have drastically increased morbidity when associated with OSA, and time and again it has been shown that the successful treatment of OSA improves the quality and length of life in people with these conditions.5 Simply by managing a patient with OSA using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment reduces the blood pressure to such an extent that cardiac risk may fall by 20%, and stroke risk by 40%, over five to 10 years.6 Sleep medicine is also relevant to psychiatry (which came first–the depression, or the chronic fatigue?), paediatrics, and cardiology–in fact almost any specialty you can think of. S
