New sleep apnea treatment in works

MINNEAPOLIS, June 13 (UPI) -- Two medical manufacturers -- one in Minnesota and the other in California -- are burning the midnight oil to try to ensure people get a good night's sleep.

The companies are working to develop a pacemaker-style device that could provide an alternative to the cumbersome treatment of obstructive sleep apnea, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Sunday.

The devices stimulate a nerve that controls tongue movement that researchers hope will prevent the tongue from blocking the airway during sleep.

"It kind of takes control over my tongue," said Rik Krohn, 67, of Burnsville, Minn., who received one of the implants about two years ago.

The devices being tested in research studies wouldn't be widely available in the United States for a few years, even under the best of circumstances, researchers told the Pioneer Press. But the manufacturers are demonstrating their devices at a convention of sleep experts in Minneapolis this week.

Patients who now undergo continuous positive airway pressure therapy for obstructive sleep apnea must try to sleep while wearing a mask hooked to a machine. The device pushes air through the mask to open the user's airway, but many patients say they find the treatment is hard to take.

Obstructive sleep apnea often involves more than just the tongue, Dr. Michel Cramer Bornemann, a sleep disorder expert at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, said, so it is unclear how much benefit patients would get from a treatment so focused on one aspect of the condition.

"We have not yet found a treatment option that is equally as effective as CPAP at globally covering that real estate," Bornemann said. "The collapse of the airway is actually, anatomically, quite a complex matter."