Common Sense Family Doctor is a regular feature on our website. Today’s topic involves sleep apnea screening.
Read the Common Sense Family Doctor Here
Screening means testing people with no symptoms. Since it is difficult to make a person without symptoms feel better, the reason to screen is to find people who are “sick” (even though they show no symptoms) and for whom treatment may prevent serious or fatal things from happening.
Taking blood pressure is a good example of a simple screening test in a person having no symptoms, and we do it all the time because finding and treating high blood pressure is known to reduce the incidence of stroke and heart attack.
MainStreet Clinic treats a number of people whose fatigue, profound sleepiness, headaches, etc. are better because of treating their sleep apnea. But for people without symptoms, screening for sleep apnea would be beneficial only if it prevented bad things from happening in the future.
Advocates of sleep apnea screening point to the belief that untreated moderate to severe sleep apnea leads to cardiovascular events — strokes and heart attacks. But the latest and strongest clinical evidence refutes this. Today’s Common Sense Family Doctor explains why sleep apnea screening for people with no symptoms is not recommended in our MainStreet Clinic practice, and indeed in any evidence-based practice.
We believe in doing for our members what is of demonstrated value, based on you and the best information available.
Sincerely,
Dr. Birdwell