Daytime Polysomnography for Respiratory Dyspnea

Abstract

Polysomnography is the most reliable diagnostic method for obstructive sleep dyspnea (OSD). A burden to all-night polysomnography is usually used to diagnose OSD, but this is both the patient and physician. Therefore, we tried the daytime polysomnography for the diagnosis of OSD.
The patients were 2 female and 12 male adults, who complained of sleepiness in the daytime.
The subjects consisted of 2 patients with normal intraesophageal pressure (EP),7 patients with mild and moderate OSD, and 5 patients with severe OSD.
Daytime polysomnography with natural sleep posed many p roblems. The patients could not sleep sufficiently during the daytime and their sleep was less deep during the daytime than at night.5 patients with only severe OSD could be diagnosed by daytime polysomnography.
Therefore, we performed the daytime polysomnography using sleep drugs to another 14 patients (all patients were male) with OSD.
Zopicron at a dose of 7.5 mg was ad m inistered per os to the patient before daytime polysomnography. About one month later, all-night polysomnography was carried out.
The mean sleep efficiency was 74.1% in the daytime with Zopiclone, which was close to the mean sleep efficiency (79.5%) in the night sleep. The intraesophageal pressure and apnea index during daytime sleep corresponded to those during night sleep except in 2 patients.
In conclution, daytime polysomnography using Zopicrone was very useful for the screaning of OSD.