Sleep Med Psychophysiol.  2009 Dec;16(2):65-73.

Characteristics of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome Patients Proven with Nocturnal Polysomnography as Correlates of Age and Gender

Affiliations
  • 1Seoul Metropolitan Eunpyeong Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
  • 2Department of Psychiatry, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Incheon, Korea.
  • 3Department of Psychiatry, Sanggye Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
  • 4Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and Center for Sleep and Chronobiology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. jeongdu@snu.ac.kr

Abstract


OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical and polysomnographic characteristics of Korean patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), especially in relation to differences due to age and gender.
METHODS
All subjects were consecutive patients who were proven to have OSAS with nocturnal polysomnography. They were interviewed with a structured interview format including sociodemographic information, past medical history, medication, and sleep-related history. Simultaneously, they were also given Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) to answer in order to check subjective sleep quality and subjective sleepiness.
RESULTS
Mean age of the 308 subjects was 49.5+/-13.3 years, with 77.6% of the subjects being males and 22.4% of the subjects being females. The aging effects on the sleep architecture in Korean OSAS corresponded with normal aging, but with the effect of OSAS itself superimposed, the extent of aging effects was more marked than that of normal aging. The severity of Korean patients of OSAS was not correlated with age. When divided into age subgroups, significant correlation was found between RDI and BMI in patients of each subgroup of those in the 4th to 7th decades. The oldest subgroup (>70 years) described their subjective sleep quality as poorer than any other age subgroups, despite of less subjective drowsiness. The severity of OSAS and the change of sleep architecture of male subjects turned out to be severer than those of female ones. The female/male ratio of the subjects tended to increase with aging.
CONCLUSIONS
The aging effect on the sleep architecture in Korean OSAS seems to be a mixture of the changes by normal aging and sleep disorder per se. The severity of OSAS was not correlated with age, but highly correlated with BMI. The severity of OSAS and the change of sleep architecture of male patients were severer than those of female ones.

Keyword

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome; Age; Gender; Body mass index

MeSH Terms

Aging
Body Mass Index
Female
Humans
Male
Polysomnography
Sleep Apnea, Obstructive
Sleep Stages
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