Researchers from the University of Sydney have found the first hard evidence that the special masks doctors prescribe to patients with sleep apnea - a disorder that can cause interrupted breathing leading to choking and even death while asleep - actually work.
Dr Jong-Won Kim and colleagues from the University of Sydney's Brain Dynamics Group statistically analysed the sleep patterns of patients by polysomonography - recording a person's brain signals, heartbeat, muscle and eye movement - then analysing the results using a mathematical model know as the Markov process.
"Continuous Positive Airways Pressure (CPAP) masks are a common treatment to improve sleep of apneic patients" Dr Kim said. "Special masks to assist with breathing have been prescribed for patients with this disorder for several years, but the feedback from the patients as to their effectiveness was subjective."
Dr Kim and his team analysed sleep patterns of 113 patients with and without the masks, finding that the masks helped improve sleeping patterns in 70 per cent of cases. "Interestingly, from this we found that patients with sleep apnea have a subtle but different brain activity when asleep," Kim says.