Breathing Monitor Not Reliable for Sleeping Kids

Portable home monitoring devices are useful for checking adults who periodically stop breathing during sleep, a condition known as obstructive sleep apnea. However, these devices do not always catch such episodes in children with the condition.

Portable home monitoring devices are useful for checking adults who periodically stop breathing during sleep, a condition known as obstructive sleep apnea. However, these devices do not always catch such episodes in children with the condition.According to a new study, such monitors detect moderate sleep apnea in children only 67 percent of the time. Also, they wrongly identify breathing stoppages 40 percent of the time.Doctors at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Sleep Clinic in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, assessed 58 children for possible obstructive sleep apnea. They spent two nights of monitoring at home with a portable device that measured oxygen levels in the blood (an oximeter) and a third night in a sleep clinic with computerized laboratory monitoring. .Fifty-one children were between the ages of 4 and 12, and seven were age 13 or older. In all but one case, complete data was obtained from the home monitoring studies.The results recorded in the clinic “agreed poorly with the portable monitor,” Dr. Valerie G Kirk and colleagues report in the medical journal Chest. The portable monitor misidentified 9 children with moderate sleep apnea as normal and 12 normal children as having moderate sleep apnea.”Clearly,” the researchers write, simple oximetry measurements cannot replace sleep laboratory monitoring when it comes to checking children for obstructive sleep apnea.”Given the differences between adults and children with obstructive sleep apnea, one cannot assume that diagnostic instruments previously validated in an adult population are equally as accurate when used in children,” they add.(Source: Chest, Reuters Health, Nov 2003.