• The Arcachon clinic has just opened the first polysomnography service in the Basin.

  • This service intends to treat sleep disorders in general, but is particularly interested in sleep apnea.

  • This syndrome can lead to cardiovascular pathologies and would worsen the occurrence of cancers.

A "major public health issue", insists Eric Albert, anesthetist-resuscitator and somnologist. He has just opened the first polysomnography service in the Basin at the Arcachon clinic. If Bordeaux is already well equipped in this area, with in particular the CHU sleep clinic, this service was lacking in the territory of the Arcachon basin, which covers a patient population going as far as the north of the Landes. That is, potentially, between 13,000 and 20,000 people affected by sleep disorders.

Polysomnography is the technique used to measure sleep disorders in general.

Covered with sensors at eye, chin and mouth level, the patient will be invited to spend a full night in the department of the Arcachon clinic, with six beds, so that the device can measure the quality of his sound. sleep.

Eric Albert specifies that hospitalization is fully covered by health insurance and mutuals.

If the service is able to diagnose any sleep pathology, it is particularly interested in the syndrome of obstructive hypopnea sleep apnea (Sahos), "an underhand pathology which has deleterious consequences in the medium and long term" insists the anesthetist-resuscitator.

"Drowsiness, snoring and a feeling of suffocation"

Between 6 and 10% of the general population would present a Sahos, and this syndrome would concern about 60% of specialized sleep consultations. It is characterized by the repetition during sleep of episodes of partial or complete closure of the upper airways, resulting in decreased or stopped breathing for at least ten seconds.

Among the evocative signs, appear in particular "drowsiness and daytime fatigue, severe nocturnal snoring or even the sensation of suffocation" lists Dr. Eric Albert.

But it is above all the consequences of the pathology that are worrying.

"It can worsen cardiovascular pathologies [infarction, hypertension, stroke, etc.], generate work or road accidents, it lowers the immune defenses and accentuates the occurrence of cancer ..." Its medico-social cost would thus weigh more on top of that, “in particular in our Western societies, which are particularly exposed to this risk.

"

Better detect sleep apnea before anesthesia

Hence the interest in diagnosing this syndrome as early as possible, especially when we know that only 20 to 30% of the population with Sahos is treated. Once diagnosed, the patient will then have to equip himself "with a device consisting of a mask that takes the nose and mouth, in order to treat this pharyngeal collapse which prevents breathing. "It will be necessary to consider keeping this equipment for life," but it can only be worn at night, and greatly improves the quality of sleep, "insists the anesthetist-resuscitator.

The polysomnography service also aims to better detect sleep apnea in patients undergoing surgery under anesthesia.

“It is very important because the management in anesthesia is different, affirms the doctor.

These patients are more difficult to fall asleep and to ventilate, and we know that with the Covid, people who have apnea and who have not been treated before, have great worries to be resuscitated, because of decreased immunity, oxygen desaturation plus increased risk of thrombosis.

They are also patients who can have major problems postoperatively.

"

Sleep clinic-Arcachon, 05 40 70 50 22

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