Use of portable sleep monitors to diagnose sleep apnea during predeployment assessment

Portable sleep monitors (PMs) may be more expeditious and convenient than in-laboratory sleep studies in diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). We report for the first time the use of PMs in a military population to demonstrate feasibility in predeployment assessments.

A nested, descriptive study was undertaken at 7 military medical facilities as part of a larger clinical trial. Subjects answered two questionnaires to identify OSA symptoms and used an ApneaLink Plus portable monitor to test for OSA. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the subjects and to report results of PM use.

101 subjects were enrolled, and 77 subjects completed the study. 4.0% of subjects did not tolerate PM use. We found 15 subjects with OSA, with mean age of 31.4 +/- 12.8 years, mean body mass index of 33.0 +/- 7.4 kg/m2, and mean apnea-hypopnea index of 19.6 +/- 13.9 per hour. Subjects with OSA were more likely to have high pretest probability of disease than those without OSA.

We demonstrate that PMs are well-tolerated and can successfully identify OSA in those with high pretest probability. We propose a method to implement PM use during predeployment assessments.