Patients with OHS require increased levels of medical care and are more likely to be hospitalised. Hospitalisation rates of OHS patients were found to be 8.6 times higher than for general population control subjects1.
OHS patients have been found to make 11.2 physician visits per year compared to 5.7 visits for obese-only patients.
OHS often results in right-sided heart failure, pulmonary hypertension and polyglobulia2.
Effective treatment of OHS has shown a significant reduction in physician fees and a 68.4% decrease in annual hospitalisation days1.
For OHS patients, NIV significantly improves blood gases during the night, but the effect also remains during the day. NIV provides relief for the ventilatory muscles and has been proven to have a positive effect on lung function, especially when residual capacity is increased3.
References
1
Berg G, Delaive K, Manfreda J, et al. The use of healthcare resources in obesity hypoventilation syndrome. Chest. 2001
2
Parameswaran, K, Todd, DC, Soth, M . Altered respiratory physiology in obesity. Can Respir J. . 2006;13
3
Budweiser, S., Hitzl A.P., Jörres, R.A., Schmidbauer, K., Heinemann, F., Pfeifer, M., (2007). Health-related quality of life and long-term prognosis in chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure: a prospective survival analysis. Respir Res
