mystery of yawning
Le bâillement, du réflexe à la pathologie
Le bâillement : de l'éthologie à la médecine clinique
Le bâillement : phylogenèse, éthologie, nosogénie
 Le bâillement : un comportement universel
La parakinésie brachiale oscitante
Yawning: its cycle, its role
Warum gähnen wir ?
 
Fetal yawning assessed by 3D and 4D sonography
Le bâillement foetal
Le bâillement, du réflexe à la pathologie
Le bâillement : de l'éthologie à la médecine clinique
Le bâillement : phylogenèse, éthologie, nosogénie
 Le bâillement : un comportement universel
La parakinésie brachiale oscitante
Yawning: its cycle, its role
Warum gähnen wir ?
 
Fetal yawning assessed by 3D and 4D sonography
Le bâillement foetal
http://www.baillement.com
resolutionmini

mise à jour du
29 octobre 2012
CHEST
October 2012;142
(4_MeetingAbstracts)
1062A

Excessive Yawning Is Not a Characteristic of Daytime Sleepiness Due to Sleep Apnea Syndrome
 
Epameinondas Kosma, Silvia Dumitru, Sotirios Gyftopoulos,Ioannis Xazapis, Katerina Chronopoulou, Panos Demertzis
 
Metropolitan General Hospital, Neo Faliro, Greece

Chat-logomini

 
Sleep Posters presented on Wednesday, October 24, 2012
 
PURPOSE: It has been suggested that sleep apnea may have an adaptive benefit, the reduction of nocturnal respiratory heat loss. On the other hand, there is a growing body of evidence that yawning may be a thermoregulatory mechanism that represents an adaptation to conditions that increase body/brain temperature, such as sleep fragmentation. Since sleep apnea and yawning are thermoregulatory mechanisms functioning towards opposite directions, we hypothesized that excessive daytime sleepiness due to sleep apnea is not characterized by excessive yawning.
 
METHODS: We have studied 85 consecutive subjects with excessive daytime hypersomnolence (Epworth scale³12) who underwent a full night diagnostic polysomnography (PSG). Patients were classified as sleep apneic when their Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) was ³15 events/hour and as non-sleep apneic when their AHI was < 5 events/hour. Before PSG, all patients were asked whether they usually experience bouts of yawning from morning awakening until early evening (6 pm) after an efficient night sleep (>6 hours).
 
RESULTS: We discarded 12 subjects with AHI 5-14 events/hour. Fifty two subjects with hypersomnolence were diagnosed to suffer from sleep apnea syndrome (age 47±13 yo; Epworth scale 16±3; AHI 51±22), while the remaining 21 sleepy subjects had no sleep apnea (age 44±17; Epworth scale 17±3; AHI 2±1). Bouts of yawning have been reported by only 9 out of the 52 (17%) sleepy apneic patients and by 18 out of the 21 (86%, p<0.001) sleepy nonapneic patients.
 
CONCLUSIONS: It seems that absence of yawning bouts in a sleepy patient may predict the presence of sleep apnea syndrome as a cause of the excessive daytime sleepiness with a sensitivity of 83% and a specificity of 86%. The reason is unclear, however, it can be speculated that sleep apnea and yawning, both sharing an adaptive thermoregulatory ability towards opposite directions (heating/cooling respectively), usually do not coexist.
 
CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Our data suggest that questioning about daytime excessive bouts of yawning should be included in the recording of symptoms when taking medical history from sleepy subjects in the Sleep Clinic.