부산대학교 도서관

Summary: Problems and side effects resulting from CPAP treatment in patients with OSAS can often be solved during therapy initiation. However, some symptoms develop several weeks or even months after treatment has started. Well-known determinants of noncompliance are the patient being comparatively only slightly overweight and lack of daytime sleepiness as well as high treatment pressure and oronasal problems. These criteria, however, correlate poorly with actual long-term compliance rates. Therefore follow-up examinations are necessary to detect non-compliant patients. Several studies have repeatedly shown high effectiveness of follow-up procedures. However, methods without sufficient evidence for wide-spread use are also being used. High compliance is important because the usage of more than 6 hours per night can considerably improve life expectancy in OSAS patients. Measures to improve compliance of proven effectiveness are repeated sessions of education, psychosocial interventions, use of alternative treatments, prescription of a heated humidifier, changing to an alternate mask, detection of mouth leakage and treatment of persisting or reappearing daytime sleepiness. Thus, by periodic controls an amelioration of usage time and a better cost-effectiveness ratio can be achieved with relative low expenditure.