The importance of living well starting from the quality of sleep. Professor Claudio Vicini, director of the Otolaryngology Operating Unit of the “Morgagni-Pierantoni” hospital in Forlì, chaired the National Congress of the Italian Association of Sleep Medicine (Aims) at the Palacongressi in Rimini, an annual appointment for a timely update on new developments in scientific, technological and organizational-regulatory fields in relation to sleep and its disorders. During a three-day session, the most recent updates on the relationships between sleep disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, sleep-associated movement disorders, parasomnia, insomnia and hypersomnia such as narcolepsy were discussed.
Professor Vicini, how do sleep disorders manifest themselves?
In a general sense we can say that there are typical sleep disorders and obviously insomnia, which is one of the most frequent disorders; then there are excess sleep and situations characterized by pathological sleepiness and among these we can also include sleep apnea which, devastating the quality of our night sleep, then causes fatigue the next day, and a wide range of disorders very different from each other in which it is the quality of sleep and not the quantity that is altered.
Is snoring a pathology to be considered as a dashboard warning light that comes on when there are anomalies?
Surely. Snoring is often accompanied by apneas that may initially go unnoticed and therefore snoring is a first warning light that must alert us.
What do apneas predispose to?
It predisposes to cardiovascular alterations from the simplest picture of hypertension to more serious conditions, such as heart attack and stroke, to neuropsychological alterations both of the cognitive sphere, that is of the reasoning and memory skills and of the mood finally to alterations affecting many functional systems different such as endocrine, sexual and many others that constitute a very dangerous mix of induced alterations.
What are the risks that can cause apneas?
It can be said that the greatest risk is that of not realizing that they exist and therefore incur all those possible complications that I have listed above. An always high attention to the problem can be of great help in the future.
How high is the percentage of those who do not have sweet dreams in our area?
If we consider our territory as the entire national area, we can say with a recent Milanese survey that the number of Italians falling within this risk range is over 24 million.
Do males or females snore more?
Until menopause, males are in pole position, after menopause the prevalences are equal.
Do sleep disorders also put our heart at risk?
Absolutely yes. The heart disorders produced by apneas are numerous and very serious in addition to the fact that pre-existing heart diseases are certainly strongly aggravated.
What is the treatment of sleep breathing disorders evolving?
It is evolving towards a progressive and increasingly precise individualization of the best treatment for the individual subject also in relation to expectations and aspirations or, on the other hand, to what one does not want to accept as unwanted therapy, therefore it is moving towards an increasingly personalized therapy. .
When should surgery be performed?
When non-surgical measures are not accepted or have failed, and when the conditions of the individual subject are conducive to surgical treatment.
What must be done in advance?
It is necessary to try to respect a series of good rules mostly dictated by common sense first of all to respect the weight without exceeding in nutrition and avoiding a too sedentary life. It is also necessary to avoid the abuse of exciting drinks, especially in the second part of the day, and not to abuse in the use of hypnotic drugs.
Have problems emerged in patients infected with covid?
In the acute phase it was found that the patient with sleep apnea is more fragile and more frequently incurs major complications, in convalescence and in the following months the very frequent and lasting psychological complications can pollute the quality of sleep even for a very long time. long.