Could someone please interpret this sleep study for a family friend

[JamesD0079]

Hi everyone,

A family friend has chronic sleep disorder, has been very reluctant about doing anything about it, but I convinced them to get a sleep study. Since having the sleep study done quite some time ago they have not followed up with their physician, but I asked if I could seek some opinions on the results so they could be more informed. So I have attached...

In regards to their symptoms, they average sleep for about 4hours a night probably for the last 10 years, often going through very difficult patches, seemed to have gravitated to sleeping on their side only or at least going to sleep on their side (sleep study shows they do sleep on their back). They have had a myriad of other health problems that have come about since. Cannot nap, when doing meditation on their back during the day despite being chronically tired, they will never fall asleep for more than 5-10mins without waking up. They are a male, reasonably tall, and slim.  

In regards to the test, my family friend said they hardly slept at all during the night of it, so not sure how useful it is, but I did notice that when they are on there back there seems to be constant lengthy hypopneas which makes me think that sleep apnea is probably the underlying cause... (which I have suspected for some time).


Please see test attached.

Any advice would be much appreciated, so that I can guide them towards taking some action on this...
Thanks very much.

[cdplatt]

That sleep study doesn't seem to suggest that apnea is your friend's sleep problem.  "Hardly slept at all" is inconsistent with the sleep report's 7.4 hours of sleep. The AHI doesn't even rise to a mild level and O2 desaturation below 90% was only about 20 seconds.  

There may be other stressors interrupting sleep.  Restless legs may have contributed to that problem.  Nonetheless, out of the 70 sleep arousals more than half of them were not related to respiration events or leg movement.  Your friend may want to continue searching for other pathologies that explain insomnia and/or chronic fatigue.

[mesenteria]

The report tells us that supine sleep, which happens to comprise the bulk of the time spent in bed for this person, is problematic.  The diagnosed AHI during supine sleep is right at the point where mild apnea/hypopnea begins to run into the 'treatable' range. 

REM latency is quicker than it would be if you polled 100 people randomly selected from the general (non-apnea-afflicted) population. Typically, first nocturnal REM and dreaming takes place near the 90 minute mark, with variation nearing 40 minutes.  Don't know what to make of that, and a qualified sleep coach or physician might have some suggestions. I can't even say it seems to be a problem for this patient.

The suggestion posted at the end of the report is that sleep hygiene and supine sleeping should be addressed, even if just in a cautionary way.

[JamesD0079]

Thanks very much for both these replies, I really appreciate it.

[cdplatt]

Supine sleep comprised 2.4 hours, non-supine sleep 5 hours.