Obstructive sleep apnea: impact of hypoxemia on memory.
OBJECTIVE
Attempts to understand the causes of cognitive impairment in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are complicated by the overlap among clinical and demographic factors that may impact cognition. The goal of the current study was to isolate the contribution of hypoxemia to cognitive impairment in OSA.


METHODS
Two groups of 20 patients with newly diagnosed OSA were compared. The groups differed on severity of hypoxemia but not other demographic (e.g., age, gender, education, estimated premorbid IQ) or clinical (e.g., sleep related respiratory disturbances, daytime sleepiness, depressive symptoms) variables. Participants completed polysonmography and cognitive assessment.


RESULTS
We compared patients with high and low hypoxemia on measures of memory, attention, executive functioning, and motor coordination using independent sample t-tests. The high hypoxemia group performed significantly better on immediate recall (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test - Revised; t = -2.50, p < 0.02) than the low hypoxemia group. No group differences were observed on other neuropsychological measures.


CONCLUSIONS
This study is one of the first to compare the cognitive performance of patients with high and low hypoxemia after controlling for demographic factors and aspects of OSA severity that could confound the relationship. In our carefully matched sample, we observed an unexpected advantage of higher hypoxemia on memory. These preliminary findings are discussed in the context of basic science literature on the protective effects of adaptation to intermittent hypoxemia. Our data suggest that the association between hypoxemia and cognition may not straightforward. Future research targeting the effects of hypoxemia on cognition controlling for other clinical factors in large groups of patients with OSA will be important.
National Jewish Health, Department of Medicine, 1400 Jackson Street, Denver, CO, USA. hothk@njhealth.org
Karin F
KF
Hoth
Molly E
ME
Zimmerman
Kimberly A
KA
Meschede
J Todd
JT
Arnedt
Mark S
MS
Aloia
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017286:Polysomnography; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D020181:Sleep Apnea, Obstructive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*