Kids Who Snore May Have Learning Problems
Children who are habitual snorers may show behavioral abnormalities and mental deficits. This holds true even when the kids don’t have sleep apnea — temporary cessation of breathing during sleep — according to a report in the medical journal Pediatrics.
“Most parents and pediatricians have traditionally assumed that unless frank sleep apnea is present in the sleep study, there is no need for concerns and the condition has been therefore termed ‘primary snoring,”‘ says senior investigator Dr. David Gozal.
“Our study,” he continued, “indicates for the first time that even among such primary snoring children there is hidden morbidity that is not as severe as in children with frank sleep apnea, but is of sufficient magnitude to consider these manifestations as being of clinical importance.”
To gauge possible effects, the team investigated compared 87 such children with 31 similar children without primary snoring.
During sleep studies, children with primary snoring spent significantly less of their sleep time in rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep than did control children.
Kids who snored had significantly lower scores in overall cognitive ability and on several measures of language ability and visuospatial ability, although the results remained within normal limits.
They also performed significantly worse than non-snoring children on measures of anxiety and depression, hyperactivity, social problems, and attention, the researchers report. The differences were generally small, however.
Given these findings, Gozal concluded that snoring more than 3 or 4 times a week and evidence of poor sleep including such symptoms as fatigue and learning problems, “should prompt the parents to seek medical advice by their pediatrician and be referred for evaluation in an accredited sleep center.”