A Randomized Controlled Trial of Telemedicine for Long-Term Sleep Apnea Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Management

Telemedicine in Sleep-Disordered Breathing

“…97 A few studies were conducted among Asian patients with OSA. Murase and colleagues 105 showed the noninferiority of a telemonitoring system at 3-month follow-up in CPAP adherence, whereas Chumpangern and colleagues 79,155,156 reported an insignificantly higher CPAP compliance, and adherence was significantly higher in the telemonitoring group.…”

“…Nevertheless, the ideal frequency of face-to-face follow-up for maintenance of CPAP adherence remains to be elucidated. Murase and colleagues 105 could demonstrate a favorable effect of a telemedicine intervention on treatment adherence in long-term CPAP users, and found that visits every 3 months with a monthly telemedicine intervention had a beneficial change in adherence similar to monthly visits. This finding may suggest that telemedicine interventions can assume some of the merits of close face-to-face follow-up for the maintenance of CPAP adherence.…”

“…Nevertheless, in a simulation of the cost effect, it was shown that if half of the patients were managed by telemedicine, the nationwide annual cost for management of patients with OSA would decrease with 17%. 105…”

Integrating telemedicine into sleep medicine: a learner’s perspective

“…Sleep medicine is uniquely poised to leverage TM for patient care. Evidence exists that sleep disorders like insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are increasing in prevalence 1,2 and, for most patients with insomnia or OSA, seamless TM models can deliver high-quality care 3 . The options for TM include synchronous visits, consisting of telephone and video visits, and asynchronous care models (store and forward).…”

Contemporary Concise Review 2019: Sleep and ventilation

“…Data suggest that remote monitoring of patients can occur in under‐resourced areas . The availability of cloud‐based PAP monitoring systems has placed OSA management in a unique position for telemedicine, but studies on the effects of telemedicine on PAP adherence have been mixed in different patient populations . How best to incorporate telemedicine in the management of OSA remains to be determined .…”