[Assessment of attention parameters in sleep apnea patients]

In the current study the modality-shift paradigm was applied to examine attention deficits in sleep-apnea patients. The reaction times of ipsi- and crossmodal light and sound stimuli were measured on 34 patients presenting symptoms of sleep-apnea. Some of the simple reaction times of ipsimodal (light-light; sound-sound) and crossmodal (light-sound; sound-light) stimuli correlated with mean or with minimal oxygen saturation, but did not correlate with the frequency or duration of obstructive apneas and hypopneas. However, results are different if the amount of modality-shift effect is taken into consideration. Significant correlations were found for the maximal duration of obstructive apneas and hypopneas as well as for mean oxygen saturation.