Sleep is essential for optimal health in children and adolescents. Members of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine developed consensus recommendations for the amount of sleep needed to promote optimal health in children and adolescents using a modified RAND Appropriateness Method. The recommendations are summarized here. A manuscript detailing the conference proceedings and the evidence supporting these recommendations will be published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. CO NSENSUS RECO M M ENDATI O NS• Infants* 4 months to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health. • Children 1 to 2 years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health. • Children 3 to 5 years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health. • Children 6 to 12 years of age should sleep 9 to 12 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health. • Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.• Sleeping the number of recommended hours on a regular basis is associated with better health outcomes including: improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health.• Regularly sleeping fewer than the number of recommended hours is associated with attention, behavior, and learning problems. teenagers is associated with increased risk of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts.• Regularly sleeping more than the recommended hours may be associated with adverse health outcomes such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and mental health problems.• Parents who are concerned that their child is sleeping too little or too much should consult their healthcare provider for evaluation of a possible sleep disorder.* Recommendations for infants younger than 4 months are not included due to the wide range of normal variation in duration and patterns of sleep, and insufficient evidence for associations with health outcomes. BACKG ROUND A ND M ETHO DO LOGYHealthy sleep requires adequate duration, appropriate timing, good quality, regularity, and the absence of sleep disturbances or disorders. Sleep duration is a frequently investigated sleep measure in relation to health. A panel of 13 experts in sleep medicine and research used a modified RAND Appropriateness Method 1 to develop recommendations regarding the sleep duration range that promotes optimal health in children aged 0-18 years. The expert panel reviewed published scientific evidence addressing the relationship between sleep duration and

A commentary on this article apears in this issue on page 1439.

Obstructive sleep apnea in infants has a distinctive pathophysiology, natural history, and treatment compared with that of older children and adults. Infants have both anatomical and physiological predispositions toward airway obstruction and gas exchange abnormalities; including a superiorly placed larynx, increased chest wall compliance, ventilation-perfusion mismatching, and ventilatory control instability. Congenital abnormalities of the airway, such as laryngomalacia, hemangiomas, pyriform aperture stenosis, choanal atresia, and laryngeal webs, may also have adverse effects on airway patency. Additional exacerbating factors predisposing infants toward airway collapse include neck flexion, airway secretions, gastroesophageal reflux, and sleep deprivation. Obstructive sleep apnea in infants has been associated with failure to thrive, behavioral deficits, and sudden infant death. The proper interpretation of infant polysomnography requires an understanding of normative data related to gestation and postconceptual age for apnea, arousal, and oxygenation. Direct visualization of the upper airway is an important diagnostic modality in infants with obstructive apnea. Treatment options for infant obstructive sleep apnea are predicated on the underlying etiology, including supraglottoplasty for severe laryngomalacia, mandibular distraction for micrognathia, tonsillectomy and/or adenoidectomy, choanal atresia repair, and/or treatment of gastroesophageal reflux.Keywords: sleep-disordered breathing; adenotonsillar hypertrophy; craniofacial; micrognathia; laryngomalacia Infants experience a wide range of sleep-disordered breathing patterns, including periodic breathing (1), apnea of prematurity (2), and central apnea, but little attention has been given to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Infants are particularly vulnerable to obstructive sleep-disordered breathing related to their upper airway structure (3), adverse pulmonary mechanics (4), ventilatory control (5), arousal threshold (6), laryngeal chemoreflex (7), and an REM-predominant sleep state distribution (8). The anatomical and physiological predispositions toward airway obstruction in infants are summarized in Table 1. Airway collapse may occur passively related to the balance between the viscoelastic properties of the pharynx, pharyngeal dilators, and the transmural pressure. Alternatively, obstructive apnea may result from active glottic closure, termed the laryngeal chemoreflex. The diagnosis of OSA in infants is confirmed by polysomnography and the etiology is often determined via direct endoscopic visualization of the airway. Infants with severe OSA will often have marked hypoxemia or sleep fragmentation, which is likely to result in considerable morbidity. As such, successful therapy is mandatory, even if this requires invasive treatment including nasopharyngeal tubes, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), supraglottoplasty, or even tracheostomy. This review focuses on the clinical features, polysomnographic patterns, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and mana...

Sleep-disordered breathing is a common and serious cause of metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurocognitive morbidity in children. The spectrum of obstructive sleep-disordered breathing ranges from habitual snoring to partial or complete airway obstruction, termed obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Breathing patterns due to airway narrowing are highly variable, including obstructive cycling, increased respiratory effort, flow limitation, tachypnea, and/or gas exchange abnormalities. As a consequence, sleep homeostasis may be disturbed. Increased upper airway resistance is an essential component of OSA, including any combination of narrowing/retropositioning of the maxilla/mandible and/or adenotonsillar hypertrophy. However, in addition to anatomic factors, the stability of the upper airway is predicated on neuromuscular activation, ventilatory control, and arousal threshold. During sleep, most children with OSA intermittently attain a stable breathing pattern, indicating successful neuromuscular activation. At sleep onset, airway muscle activity is reduced, ventilatory variability increases, and an apneic threshold slightly below eupneic levels is observed in non-REM sleep. Airway collapse is offset by pharyngeal dilator activity in response to hypercapnia and negative lumenal pressure. Ventilatory overshoot results in sudden reduction in airway muscle activation, contributing to obstruction during non-REM sleep. Arousal from sleep exacerbates ventilatory instability and, thus, obstructive cycling. Paroxysmal reductions in pharyngeal dilator activity related to central REM sleep processes likely account for the disproportionate severity of OSA observed during REM sleep. Understanding the pathophysiology of pediatric OSA may permit more precise clinical phenotyping, and therefore improve or target therapies related to anatomy, neuromuscular compensation, ventilatory control, and/or arousal threshold.

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BackgroundObstructive sleep apnea is a relatively common disorder that can lead to lost productivity and cardiovascular disease. The form of positive airway treatment that should be offered is unclear.MethodsMEDLINE and the Cochrane Central Trials registry were searched for English language randomized controlled trials comparing auto-titrating positive airway pressure (APAP) with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in adults with obstructive sleep apnea (inception through 9/2010). Six researchers extracted information on study design, potential bias, patient characteristics, interventions and outcomes. Data for each study were extracted by one reviewer and confirmed by another. Random effects model meta-analyses were performed for selected outcomes.ResultsTwenty-four randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria. In individual studies, APAP and fixed CPAP resulted in similar changes from baseline in the apnea-hypopnea index, most other sleep study measures and quality of life. By meta-analysis, APAP improved compliance by 11 minutes per night (95% CI, 3 to 19 minutes) and reduced sleepiness as measured by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale by 0.5 points (95% CI, 0.8 to 0.2 point reduction) compared with fixed CPAP. Fixed CPAP improved minimum oxygen saturation by 1.3% more than APAP (95% CI, 0.4 to 2.2%). Studies had relatively short follow-up and generally excluded patients with significant comorbidities. No study reported on objective clinical outcomes.ConclusionsStatistically significant differences were found but clinical importance is unclear. Because the treatment effects are similar between APAP and CPAP, the therapy of choice may depend on other factors such as patient preference, specific reasons for non-compliance and cost.

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