Pain tolerance and obstructive sleep apnea in the elderly
S-Hakki Onen1, Fannie Onen, Gilles Albrand
1Hospices Civils de Lyon, Pôle Gériatrie, Hôpital Gériatrique Antoine Charial, Francheville, France. hakki.onen@chu-lyon.fr
Journal of the American Medical Directors Association
|October 30, 2010
Summary
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in elderly patients demonstrated an analgesic effect, significantly improving pain tolerance with high-level CPAP treatment.
Area of Science:
- Geriatric Medicine
- Sleep Medicine
- Pain Management
Background:
- Sleep disturbances are common in patients with painful conditions and can affect pain tolerance.
- Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) significantly disrupts sleep patterns.
- The elderly population has a high prevalence of both OSA and chronic pain.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the impact of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on pain tolerance in elderly patients with OSA.
- To determine if CPAP treatment for OSA can yield an analgesic effect.
Main Methods:
- Randomized, double-blind, crossover study design.
- 13 elderly patients (≥70 years) with OSA were enrolled.
- Assessed sleep quality, respiratory parameters, and electrical pain tolerance.
Main Results:
- Both low- and high-level CPAP improved respiratory function in OSA patients.
- High-level CPAP significantly enhanced electrical pain tolerance, indicating an analgesic effect (P = .03).
- Low-level CPAP did not significantly alter pain tolerance compared to baseline.
Conclusions:
- CPAP treatment for OSA may possess an analgesic effect, particularly at higher settings.
- This finding suggests a potential non-pharmacological pain management strategy for elderly individuals with OSA.
- The results have significant implications for managing chronic pain in the elderly, a demographic with high rates of OSA.
More Related Videos
05:34Auricular Acupuncture as a Traditional Chinese Medicine Therapy for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Combined with Sleep Disorders
Published on: August 18, 2023
07:54Drug-Induced Sleep Endoscopy (DISE) with Target Controlled Infusion (TCI) and Bispectral Analysis in Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Published on: December 6, 2016
Related Concept Videos
01:21Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a condition where breathing stops intermittently during sleep, often leading to significant health issues. Each episode can last from 10 to 20 seconds or more and is frequently accompanied by a brief arousal from sleep. This disturbance, largely unnoticed by the individual, can lead to severe daytime fatigue. Commonly, individuals seek help after being informed by their partners about loud snoring and noticeable breathing pauses during sleep.
The condition is more prevalent among...
The condition is more prevalent among...
01:17Other Pulmonary Disorders
Respiratory disorders encompass a range of conditions with varying levels of severity. Asthma, marked by chronic airway inflammation and hypersensitivity, is one such condition. It can lead to airway obstruction due to factors like bronchial spasms, mucosal edema, increased mucus secretion, or epithelial damage. Asthma triggers are diverse, ranging from allergens to emotional upset, and treatment focuses on both immediate relief through bronchodilators and long-term inflammation suppression.
01:15Drug Dosing: Geriatric Patients
Elderly individuals encompass a diverse population with varying degrees of age-related physiological changes. Defining the elderly presents challenges, as the geriatric population is often arbitrarily categorized as individuals older than 65. However, many individuals in this group lead active and healthy lives, with an increasing number surpassing 85 years and falling into the older elderly category. Physiological changes associated with aging impact performance capacity and homeostatic...
01:27Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age
Age-related pharmacokinetic changes are extensively documented, but understanding age-related pharmacodynamic alterations is relatively limited. This knowledge gap can be partly attributed to the complexity of developing appropriate measures of drug responses compared to bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations.Most information regarding age-related differences in human pharmacodynamics originates from cross-sectional studies. However, these studies assume that observed mean...
01:22Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption
As individuals age, their body's physiology evolves, affecting drug pharmacokinetics. The most apparent changes occur in the gastrointestinal tract, where an increase in gastric pH, a delay in gastric emptying, and a reduction in gastrointestinal motility are observed. Remarkably, these changes do not substantially modify the absorption of orally administered drugs, particularly those absorbed via passive diffusion.Transdermal drug delivery emerges as a highly viable method for older adults due...
01:22Heart Failure VI: Adjunct Therapies
Additional therapies for treating patients with heart failure (HF) may include procedural interventions, supplemental oxygen, the management of sleep disorders, and nutritional therapy.Procedural InterventionsImplantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator: For patients at risk of life-threatening arrhythmias due to severe left ventricular dysfunction, an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) can detect and terminate these arrhythmias, preventing sudden cardiac death and improving survival rates.