Children who snore should be evaluated for ... - Fitness for Health

Children who snore should be evaluated for sleep apnea. That?s the main recommendation from a series of updated guidelines, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

?The evidence is much stronger today,? said Dr. Carole Marcus, professor of pediatrics at Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia. ?Pediatricians should routinely ask parents about snoring and if they do, parents should mention,? he advised. ?In children, snoring may be a sign of a serious medical illness.?


Marcus referred to the sleep apnea, characterized by pauses in breathing that occur throughout the night and disturb sleep. When left untreated, sleep apnea in children can result in learning and behavioral difficulties and can also affect growth. Those consequences are related mostly to the lack of quality sleep.

Researchers led by Marcus reviewed studies on the diagnosis and management of sleep apnea in children, published between 1999 and 2011. Most appeared after the publication of the last guidelines in 2002. The new guidelines are published in the September issue of the journal Pediatrics.

If a child snores, pediatricians should follow up with a complete history and examination, he noted. ?If all this points to sleep apnea, a sleep study indicated,? Marcus raised. The gold standard for diagnosing sleep apnea is a formal sleep study but this is not always possible in young children because it results in a laboratory sleep away from home. Other options could include a sleep study at home, where children are connected to a monitor in the comfort of your room or ask parents to record video while sleeping child for what they believe could be an episode of apnea.

Many children with sleep apnea have enlarged tonsils and adenoids. In these children, the tonsils and adenoids may cure sleep apnea. Other treatments include pressure equipment for continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), which help keep the airway open during sleep. Some drugs may help treat sleep apnea.

Dr. Michael Rothschild, director of pediatric otolaryngology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, agreed that children who snore should be evaluated for sleep apnea. ?If your child snores, but have small tonsils and get a good history of the parents, and shows no signs of unease when I see a video recorded during the night, I feel assured that snoring is probably simple,? said. ?Not every child who snores need surgery.?

And surgery alone is not a cure for all children with sleep apnea, Rothschild said. Obesity increases among children and is related to sleep apnea. ?There are small tonsils obese children and lean children with large tonsils,? he said. In obese children, weight loss is also part of the treatment plan, and that surgery alone could not solve sleep apnea completely.

Source: http://corefitnessandhealth.com/2012/08/children-who-snore-should-be-evaluated-for-sleep-apnea-experts-say.html

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