What are the nursing measures for sleep apnea syndrome?

Sleep apnea syndrome is a common sleep disorder in life. Among them, the widespread snoring is one of the important factors leading to sleep apnea syndrome. Many people think that snoring during sleep is a manifestation of high sleep quality and has nothing to do with the disease. In fact, this concept is incorrect. According to incomplete statistics, there are as many as 176 million patients with sleep apnea syndrome in my country. If it continues for a long time, it will seriously endanger the physical and mental health of patients and even induce sudden death. It is a very dangerous disease. So, how should sleep apnea syndrome be cared for in daily life? Today's article will take you to popularize science.

1. Let you know about sleep apnea syndrome

Sleep apnea syndrome is a functional disease with a high incidence rate. It usually has no specific manifestations. The main manifestations are snoring during sleep, insomnia, chest tightness, and apnea during sleep. It often occurs in the middle-aged and elderly population. It has significant harm to the patient's heart, brain and other important organs. It is an important factor leading to various cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, and stroke. It may even lead to mental health diseases such as depression. Because this symptom causes the patient to temporarily stop breathing during sleep, sometimes even for 1-2 minutes, causing hypoxia in the brain, the correct signals from the brain are difficult to be transmitted to the respiratory system in time, which leads to sudden death due to prolonged cessation of breathing. Many people confuse snoring with sleep apnea syndrome. In fact, snoring is not the same as sleep apnea syndrome, but the two affect each other. Snoring is one of the typical characteristics of sleep apnea syndrome and a health alarm issued by the human body. It must be taken seriously and professionally targeted in time to improve symptoms through continuous positive airway pressure ventilation therapy, drug therapy and other methods.

Sleep apnea syndrome nursing measures

While receiving professional drug treatment, strengthening effective daily care measures can also effectively relieve sleep apnea syndrome.

1. Correct bad sleeping posture

Improving overall sleep quality can help improve sleep apnea syndrome. Improve bad sleeping postures, especially avoid sleeping on your back. This sleeping posture can aggravate airway collapse, exacerbating sleep apnea symptoms such as airway obstruction, snoring, and hypoxia. You can try sleeping on your side. To avoid lying flat, you can place pillows and cushions on one side of your body. If you feel uncomfortable lying flat, keep lying on your side. Choose a pillow that can position your head and neck to help keep the airway open and allow natural breathing. Choose a suitable ventilator mask to improve your condition.

2. Diet care

In order to ensure the nutritional needs of patients, it is recommended to maintain a scientific and healthy eating habit, eat three meals a day regularly, and eat light, nutritious and easy-to-digest foods, such as millet porridge, fruit salad, etc. Eat some fresh vegetables and fruits appropriately, such as apples, bananas, pears, etc. Eat fish, lean meat, eggs, milk and other high-protein foods in moderation to increase body nutrition and improve body immunity. Avoid eating spicy, greasy, fried and other foods with high fat content, which can easily cause indigestion and endocrine system disorders, aggravate the patient's chest tightness and apnea symptoms, and are not conducive to clinical treatment. Drink less strong tea, coffee and other beverages, which can easily increase the excitement of the nerves and affect the quality of sleep at night.

3. Increase exercise

Do aerobic exercise for about an hour every day, mainly moderate and low-intensity aerobic exercise. You can choose the exercise that suits you, such as jogging, Tai Chi, and aerobics. Appropriate exercise can help improve patients' negative emotions, improve metabolism, release more endorphins, thereby reducing life stress and getting a good sleep quality. It can also help improve other chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and heart disease, and reduce harm to the body.

4. Quit smoking and drinking

Long-term drinking and smoking are harmful to human health. Alcohol can irritate the human respiratory tract, interfere with sleep, cause awakening at night, make the body exhausted, aggravate snoring, insomnia and other sleep apnea symptoms, and make it difficult to recover from the disease. Nicotine and other harmful substances in tobacco can irritate the respiratory tract, cause various respiratory inflammations, cause various cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancer risks, and aggravate sleep apnea symptoms, so patients with sleep apnea must quit smoking and drinking.

5. Throat training

Strengthening the training of the throat and surrounding muscle tissue can keep the airway open and improve the effect of free breathing. It is recommended to practice blowing balloons, playing harmonica, Hulusi and other wind instruments for about 20 minutes a day to help exercise the throat and lung respiratory function and reduce snoring and other breathing problems.

The above are the five major nursing measures to improve sleep apnea treatment. Have you learned them? If you or your family are facing the trouble of sleep apnea, please try the above nursing methods according to your own situation to fundamentally solve the problem of sleep apnea.

Author: Huang Ying Liuzhou People's Hospital