Young Children With Persistent Snoring May Face Learning Difficulties- Study.
| by: Diego Rondon
A young child’s low grades or test scores could be an outcome of his poor sleep quality, indicates a new study. Sleep apnea, induced by persistent snoring, may affect young children’s attention, memory and language development, suggests the study.
Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleep disorder that occurs when a person’s breathing is interrupted during sleep. People with this condition have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths during sleep. Snoring is one of the most common sleep apnea symptoms, which occurs in children due to enlarged tonsils or adenoids, the researchers said.
Children snore from time to time and that is quite common and harmless. But children with frequent snoring during sleep have an increased risk of developing a disorder called sleep apnea that adversely affects the sleep quality, which in turn, elevates their risk of having difficulties with concentration and learning, the findings suggest.
In earlier research, it has been well-established that sleep apnea in adults may trigger trouble in concentration, memory issues, impaired decision-making, depression and stress.
“Although evidence suggesting the presence of cognitive deficits in children with sleep apnea has been around for quite some time, the relatively small groups studied made it difficult to demonstrate a strong relationship between increasing cognitive issues and increasing sleep apnea severity,” said lead researcher Dr. Leila Gozal, from the University of Chicago.
For the study, Dr. Gozal and colleagues enlisted a total of 1,359 public schoolchildren, aged between 5 – 7 years. All kids had sleep apnea, but only some of them snored.
The team divided the study children, comprising snorers and non-snorers, into four categories based on the severity of their sleep quality.
The kids participated in an overnight sleep study and answered detailed questions about their sleep. The children also took tests to measure certain aspects of cognitive functioning, including language, and executive development and decision-making skills.
After comparing the results across the four groups, the researchers found that even mild problems such as snoring influenced children’s thinking abilities negatively.
Researchers hope their findings could aid in developing new interventions that could be used along with existing treatments for children with consistent snoring to treat children with sleep apnea.
“Our findings provide further justification for exploration and development of simple cognitive batteries that can be coupled to the current clinical evaluation of children with habitual snoring such as to better guide the management of the decision-making process,” said Gozal.
Findings from the study were presented Monday at the American Thoracic Society’s annual international conference (ATS 2016), in San Francisco.
