Down syndrome apnea - sleep study 1

We are very lucky that my son is very healthy and he doesn't have the problems associated with DS. Except for sleep apnea. It was always an issue. He had apnea of prematurity at birth. For the longest time every time we mentioned to our pediatrician that something is off with my son's sleep our worries were kind of brushed off. Finally, when my son was 3 years old, we had our first sleep study. It is not a pleasant experience - not for the child and not for the parent. It turned out that my son had moderate apnea. In terms of his symptoms - he did not snore, he was not tired during the day, he was sleeping in a weird position with the neck super-extended, and he was waking a lot during the night.

We had our first sleep study in August 2011.

So, the results of our first sleep study. I'm not a doctor, but apnea-hypopnea index 7/hour is not good (most doctors think 1 is too much in children). Also, the sleep pattern is completely off. He spends 4.5% of this sleep time in REM compared to 20-25% normal. This is the stage when he dreams, when his mind is supposed to really relax, when everything he learned gets stored in long term memory (or something like this) - it's really important. Conclusion - tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, or T&A.

Total Recording Time (TRT):   518.8min.

Total Sleep Time (TST):          422.5min.

Sleep Efficiency Index (TST/TRT): 81.8 %

Sleep Latency:     7.5min.

REM Latency:     212.5min.

Wake after Sleep Onset: 86.5min.

Total Arousals: 88

Arousal Index: 12.5/hour

Sleep Stages

Stage 1        Minutes   54.5     %TST    12.9     Normal %TST      5-10

Stage 2        Minutes   246.0   %TST    58.2     Normal %TST    45-55

Stage 3,4     Minutes   103.0   %TST    24.4     Normal %TST    10-15

Stage REM  Minutes   19.0     %TST      4.5     Normal %TST    20-25

Respiratory Events

Obstructive Apnea          number 2, average duration (sec) 10.5

Obstructive Hypopnea    number 47, average duration (sec) 12.1

Mixed Apnea                 number 0

Central Apnea                number 0

Apnea-Hypopnea Index : 7.0/hour

Respiratory Effort Related Arousals (RERA): 19

RespiratOry Disturbance Index «apneas+hypopneas+RERA)/TST): 9.7/hour

Oxygen saturation awake: 93%

Nadir oxygen saturation during sleep: 83%

End-Tidal C02 awake: 33.0

End-Tidal C02 asleep peak: 50.1

Percentage of time with End-Tidal C02> 52mmHg: 0.0

Periodic Leg Movements:

Periodic Limb Movements with arousals: 0

Periodic Limb Movements : 0

Electrocardiographic Monitoring: Average heartrateasleep: 95