The best remedy for excessive daytime sleepiness – ScienceDaily

The standard treatment for sleep apnea is a positive airway pressure (PAP) mask that uses compressed air to prop up the airways in the lung while you sleep. However, some people with OSA still experience EDS and may benefit from anti-fatigue medications.

Zeraatkar and Pitre published their results in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“The most important thing for people with obstructive sleep apnea to do is to use their PAP machine, but if they are still asleep, there are options in the form of medication that can reduce their stress,” said first author Tyler Peter, MD, an internal medicine resident. . at McMaster University and an upcoming fellow in Respiratory Medicine at the University of Toronto.

“15 to 30 percent of people in North America have a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea and its prevalence may be much higher because so many people are undiagnosed. Many people experience symptoms because the condition is strongly linked to obesity, affecting a large and growing number of people.” People in Canada, the United States and other high-income countries.”

“Among these patients, many will develop EDS, affecting their quality of life, making them less productive and also putting them at risk for other psychological problems. Improving this situation is of the utmost importance to clinicians.”

Obstructive sleep apnea affects nearly a billion people globally, Peter said, leaving many of them at risk of EDS.

Zeraatkar and Pitre arrived at their findings by conducting a systematic review of 14 clinical trials of anti-fatigue medications that included 3,085 people, as well as analyzing data from MEDLINE, CENTRAL, EMBASE, and ClinicalTrials.gov in a grid-specific meta-analysis. They conducted their research from October 2022 to January 2023.

Senior author Zeraatkar said that while solriamfetol is probably the best drug for EDS, the drugs armodafinil-modafinil and pitolisant are also effective in combating fatigue.

Solriamfetol can also raise blood pressure, especially for people with OSA, many of whom also have cardiovascular problems.

“It will be interesting to see how effective these anti-fatigue medications can be in treating related diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome and prolonged coronavirus, now that we know they work for a similar condition,” said Zeratkar, associate professor in the department. anesthesia.