Doctor’s name: Robert Brouillette [email protected]
Eemo, My apologies to yourself. i was inaccurate about three things: first, the child’s age is actually 2, not 5; secondly, the doctor in question is not from the province i originally believed and told you. The test was carried out in a western province for the first time ever in Canada, the doctor himself however is from eastern Canada; the insert fit into the toe, not the thumb. On the tv news clip, i could swear that they showed the kid’s finger, though. Khair those are the three factual errors i made. Sorry about that.
Here’s the article i was talking about, that discusses the oxygen-monitoring device:
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http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/story.asp?id=E396CB93-9B9C-49D9-8D25-C2A7282D6C01
Two-year-old Matteo used to stop breathing 500 times a night, until a new procedure developed at the Montreal Children’s Hospital allowed doctors to diagnose the cause.
Baby Matteo would stop breathing repeatedly though the night.
Fearing he might never wake up, his parents and grandparents took turns watching his crib as he struggled to breathe.
“It sounded like he was breathing though a small straw that got progressively smaller until it shut down,” Diego Mazzone said of his 2-year-old son. “You could hear him gasping for air.”
Matteo had severe obstructive sleep apnea. He’d stop breathing about 500 times a night. But a new method of detecting the disorder that was developed at the Montreal Children’s Hospital put him on a fast track to treatment.
Diagnosis of Matteo’s apnea took one night. He was sent home with a tool called a pulse oximeter.
The machine does a simple test via a light-sensitive probe strapped to the child’s toe. It records dips in blood oxygen levels associated with sleep-related airway blockage.
That night, Matteo’s blood oxygen dropped as low as 40 per cent.
“An hour after I returned the machine, the hospital called and told me to bring him in right away - today,” Mazzone said.
The boy had his tonsils and adenoids removed the following day.
He now sleeps “like a baby,” his father quipped. “It’s made a world of difference. The problem shaped his personality. He was calm, he couldn’t run around or talk without stopping for breathing breaks.”
About one to three per cent of children are affected by the condition.
“If it’s not picked up promptly, it can cause problems with growth, overload the heart and in some cases, delay development,” said Robert Brouillette, professor of pediatrics at McGill University.
Brouillette is the lead author of a study on the new method of detecting sleep apnea published in the January issue of Pediatrics.
Apnea is most common in children age 2 to 7, a period when the tonsils and adenoids can become too large for the air passage.
Symptoms include snoring, difficulty breathing when asleep and sleep disturbances.
“What’s new is that we can rapidly make the diagnosis when we have children at risk like Matteo,” Brouillette said. “He wouldn’t have gotten tested anywhere else in Canada except Calgary.”
Children tested on the pulse oximeter are fast tracked to treatment - usually adenotonsillectomy.
The Children’s has three such machines and tests about 12 children a week.
Where it used to take months before diagnostic facilities were even available, now the problem can be detected and treated within days, Brouillette said: “It’s revolutionary.”
Matteo’s family is now watching over his twin sister, Maia, who recently developed sleep apnea.
Article’s author: [email protected]
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Here are some more links that you might find interesting; when you visit your doctor, do try to bring up some of these issues with him/her. The medical article from Pediatrics will only be accessible while it’s still the current edition so if you find it useful, print it off or save the text somewhere so you can access it later after they’re removed it off their website:
http://www.mcgill.ca/releases/2000/february/apnea/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/mu-mrd010504.php
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/2/405
http://ww2.mcgill.ca/muhc-ri/newsletter6 [Just contains his e-mail/mailing addy, it’s a pdf file]
Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More Something different
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/113/1/e19
), was from this province - i don’t want to raise your hopes for nothing but it might help you out Insha’Allah, i am not certain 