STROKE AND SLEEP APNOEA

There has been much interest recently in the precise relationship between stroke and sleep apnoea. There is some evidence that there is an increased risk of stroke in sleep apnoea and a high prevalence of sleep disordered breathing can also be found after stroke. In this issue of Thorax Turkington and colleagues report a study of patients with stroke admitted to hospital in whom sleep studies were performed within 24 hours of admission. The authors show that upper airway obstruction in the first 24 hours after admission with stroke is associated with a worse functional outcome and an increased chance of death and dependency at 6 months. Longer respiratory events were also associated with a worse outcome after stroke. In the accompanying editorial Gibson discusses some of the reasons why patients with sleep apnoea may have an adverse outcome with stroke. He also discusses the implications of …