Telemedicine home CPAP titration and follow-up in the COVID-19 scenario

Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a highly prevalent chronic disease associated with important comorbidities such as traffic accidents, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and mortality, among others [1]. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), a first-line therapy in moderate-severe OSA [2], has been proven successful in improving daytime sleepiness, quality of life, reducing traffic accidents [3], improving hypertension and paroxistical atrial fibrillation [4, 5]. However, 47% of successfully titrated patients abandon treatment within three years [5, 6]. Thus, early OSA and CPAP education with close follow-up is mandatory to achieve satisfactory CPAP compliance [6, 7]. In that context, telemedicine and telemonitoring through remote monitoring CPAP have become promising strategies [8, 9]. Recently, smartphone applications [10] and wearables [11] have been added as new suggested tools for improving CPAP compliance.