In patients who have experienced an ischemic stroke, the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been positively associated with 3-month post-stroke depression (PSD) according to research reviewed by PulmonologyAdvisor.
A hospital-based study was conducted at Jiangsu Provincial Second Chinese Medicine Hospital in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, from March 2017 through December 2018, and results were published in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases.
Investigators sought to detect the correlation between OSA severity and PSD in patients with ischemic stroke. Study eligibility criteria included the following: age ≥18 years of age, symptom onset of <14 days, and willingness to participate in a polysomnography (PSG) examination and neuropsychological assessment. All of the study enrollees underwent an overnight PSG examination during their hospitalization. The median time from onset of symptoms to the performance of PSG was 11.0 days.
In the participants, the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) was computed by averaging the total number of obstructive apneas and hypopneas per hour of sleep. Apnea was further classified as obstructive if respiratory efforts were observed either on the chest or abdominal inductance channel, or as central if no respiratory effort was seen.
