Impact of Positive Airway Pressure Among Obstructive Sleep Apnea Essay

Impact of Positive Airway Pressure Among Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients - Essay Example This amounted to a study population of 15,424 individuals, who were then followed for a minimum of 12 months and a baseline of 24 months to determine what if any health impact PAP might have been having on treatment. Of those participants, approximately ten percent did not use PAP while the remaining 90% did. Furthermore, the study designers controlled for previous illness by eliminating anyone who had a previous diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, to ensure that these results did not bias the sample. The study measured health effects by measuring the rates of hospitalization among those using PAP to those who were not. They measured this using two different metrics: total hospitalization and hospitalization related to OSA. OSA is associated with a wide number of illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, heart failure, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension, so any hospitalization for these reasons (which obviously constitute a large number of total hospitalizations) would be considered OSA related hospitalizations (1). The study found a statistically significant (p