text_1: Study shows therapy improves quality of life in people who have sleep apnea.
text_2: This news release from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine describes a large retrospective study that shows that positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy improves quality of life in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. PAP therapy is often given via CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines, and has been a standard treatment for sleep apnea for several decades. The release does a good job describing the study itself, and how the authors broke down patients into subgroups that compared age and socio-economic status. But the release also left much to be desired: it didn’t describe the limitations of retrospective studies or adequately discuss the harms or costs of these machines, which can be prohibitively expensive for some patients. Most importantly, the news release did not do a good job of establishing the novelty of this study. While there was a large sample size and various measures of quality of life, it is still unclear how this study is new since the benefits of CPAP are already well known. Obstructive sleep apnea is a common condition in the United States (and the world). It affects about 20 million adult Americans each year, and significantly decreases quality of life due to poor sleep. Sufferers of sleep apnea report daytime symptoms as well, which can include drowsiness, moodiness, headaches, and lack of energy. However sleep apnea is also a well-studied condition, and it is already known that there are several interventions, including use of a CPAP machine, that can help improve symptoms and quality of life. It would be more newsworthy if the researchers had learned something different or new about CPAP treatment or sleep apnea, instead of re-establishing what has already been known for years. The most interesting thing from this news release was that those in lower socio-economic subgroups seemed to benefit less from PAP therapy–perhaps this is a region worth further study.