ResMed, digital health company whose cloud-connectable devices help treat sleep apnea and other respiratory diseases in more than 120 countries, hosted Sleep Event in India recently.

It was attended by 70 plus respiratory and chest physicians, sharing latest advancements for sleep related disorders and sleep related breathing disorder aka, OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA.

With continued research and developments in medical scientific technology and better understanding of the human body has found that sleep hygiene is vital for our body's wellbeing. OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA is one of the most common disorders that lead to disturbances in sleep leading to poor quality of sleep. 

Disturbances in sleep are mainly caused by repeated narrowing of the upper airway during sleep due to relaxation of the body muscles. This narrowing leads to partial or complete obstructions in airflow leading to repeated waking up from sleep, causing poor quality of sleep. Stopping breathing at night results in repeated fall in oxygen supply leading to increased heart rate and work of the heart during sleep leading to high blood pressure or hypertension at an earlier age. Repeated fall in oxygen levels also leads to incomplete oxidation inside our body forming unwanted and dangerous free radicals which predispose one to diabetes or heart disease.

The reason, these go unnoticed and often untreated is that snoring is considered a cultural nuisance rather than a disease symptom. It is to be understood that snoring is the indicator of airway obstruction during sleep, and is actually marker of something very dangerous happening underneath.

Once OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA is diagnosed POSITIVE AIRWAY PRESSURE technology via a machine that blows air through a tube and mask keeping the air passage splinted open during sleep, thus removing the obstruction and its ill effects is the recommended method of treatment.

Such a machine or the CPAP machine (continuous positive airway pressure) works on electricity, is light and portable, and can be used during sleep. Improvements can be seen from day 1 of use with immediate disappearance of snoring, appearance of freshness after waking up, followed by better control in blood pressure, blood sugar and heart diseases. This CPAP machine may be required for life long depending upon the advantages gained from it, but the lives saved from premature hypertension, diabetes and heart disease is tremendous. The quality of life of such sleep troubled patients actually improves and so the lives of their immediate family members.

The conference was comprised, few of the best sleep experts across India in the panel - Dr Shahid Mahdi, BLK Hospital-New Delhi, Dr. B P Singh, Midland Healthcare & Research Centre-Lucknow, Dr Sujeet Rajan, Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Science-Mumbai, Dr Indranil Haldar, College of Medicine and JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Dr BV Murli Mohan, Narayana Medical Centre-Bangalore, Dr Srinivas Kishore Sistla, Care Hospital-Hyderabad, Dr Rahul Modi,  L H Hiranandani Hospital & SENTRA Clinic & Hospital, Mirror, Dr Dipankar Datta, Belle Vue Clinic-Kolkata, Dr George D Souza, St John’s Research Institute- Bengaluru, Prof Dipti Gothi, ESICMR-New Delhi, Dr Raja Dhar, Fortis Hospital- Kolkata, Dr A Ashwin Oliver, CMC Vellore, Dr KS Sathish, Fortis Hospital & Vikram Hospital-Bengaluru, Prof Anant Mohan-AIIMS, Dr Dhanasekhar SRMC- Chennai, Dr Supraja K Madras Medical Mission Hospital-Chennai, Dr KD Modi, Medwin Hospital-Hyderabad, Dr Pratibha Dogra, Pratiksha Hospital- Gurgaon, Dr Salil Bhargava, MGM College-Indore, Prof Lokendra Dava GMC-Bhopal, Dr Anand Jaiswal, Medanta Hospital-Gurugram, Dr Animesh Arya-ASRA New Delhi, Dr SK Madhukar, Patna, Dr Bhuwaneshwari Rajendran, Kauvery Hospital-Chennai, Dr Saurabh Karmakar, AIIMS –Patna.

Shubhi Khurana, General Manager, India and South Asia, ResMed, said, “The idea is to bring the medical fraternity together and give them hands-on experiences and understanding of Sleep technologies, latest researches and advancement”.

“A healthy sleep is one of the 3 important pillars of managing good health, hence it is very important to make people aware of its any disorder which compromises it and its consequences. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), is one of the most underdiagnosed and untreated condition, which tend to result in many serious complications, like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart strokes, obesity, day time sleepiness causing road accidents, decreased productivity etc. With 63 million potential people suffering from the same in India it is as big a problem as Diabetes and Hypertension perhaps.  It is becoming the need of the hour for not just doctors but corporates, road authorities, even the decision makers to address issues, and promote a healthy sleep”, she added.

Panel discussions revolved around, basics of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Special topics on Sleep disordered breathing, Patients based outcome, Public Health-policy and Connected care.