searabbit@piefed.social 6 hours ago
As someone with “mild” OSA who doesn’t snore but has severe daytime sleepiness (because healthcare research only uses severity measurements as it relates to disturbing other people), this study seems like a total joke.
There was no effect on the quality of sleep (difference -0.7, -2.1 to 0.6, P = 0.27). The combined analysis of sleep related outcomes showed a moderate to large effect of didgeridoo playing (difference between summary z scores -0.78 SD units, -1.27 to -0.28, P < 0.01). Changes in health related quality of life did not differ between groups.
Conclusion Regular didgeridoo playing is an effective treatment alternative well accepted by patients with moderate obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome.
So their sleep and health didn’t improve, but it was successful because the exertion masked their daytime sleepiness and lowered their apnoea-hypopnoea index (which btw, has already been shown to have much less correlation to symptom severity than other measures) which therefore lowered snoring and was less disruptive to their partners. Also, they have to buy a stupidly large and expensive instrument to boot. Who thought of this study? Didgeridoo sellers?? Who in their right mind would opt for this “treatment” over CPAP machines???
Also, they have to buy a stupidly large and expensive instrument to boot.
First few results on ebay with no filters or sorting shows several for 30-100 $USD. Compact travel didges are under 30 $USD. Full size didges are ~5 ft (150 cm) and not terribly wide. They don’t take up much more room than you would need to store a yardstick.
You could also probably just make a shitty/unique one out of PVC pipe, a handsaw, and a drill bit.
Or maybe even just core out a stick of dried bamboo?
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
You do not appear to be reading this right.
Here lemme break this down and slightly rephrase it for readaibility:
So what you describe as ‘masking daytime sleepiness’ is actually just ‘less reported daytime sleepiness’.
IE, you’re more alert, less sluggish, when awake.
Apnoea-Hyoapnoae index is basically the time you spend during sleeping having blood flow oxygenation below critical levels… this also significantly lessened.
Meaning that people got more regular well oxygenated blood flow while sleeping, after blwoing through a tube regularly.
And their sleeping partners reported being disturbed less.
The only thing that did not improve was self reported ‘quality of sleep’.
Yet they were observed to snore less, and reported being less tired during the day.
So, the only metric that didn’t improve was the one that is the most subjective and least important.
They didn’t report ‘better sleep’ but… everything else indicates that their sleep was indeed of greater quality.
Psychosomatic dubiousness that anything is different vs every other metric showing improvement.
Or, your response, basically.
Going back to the numbers, the day time sleepiness index is from 0 to 24, where over 11 is excessive sleepiness. The mean improvement is -3, which basically means these people got 3 more useful active daytime hours a day, they got 12.5% more useful time in each 24 hour period.
Again that’s not masking, that’s the exact improvement you are looking for.
The ‘choking in your sleep’ index improved by -6, when the average score of all was 21, so basically the average result was roughly 25% less time spent choking in your sleep.
Who would opt for this treatment?
I dunno, maybe anyone with a CPAP machine that wants to one day maybe not need a CPAP machine, or someone with CPAP machine and also an unreliable local power grid?
qprimed@lemmy.ml 4 hours ago
…or anyone needing a new, niche hyperfixation!
(thanks for the excellent breakdown)
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
I might suggest the harmonica as another potential alternative.