If childhood primary snoring resolves, do neurocognition and behaviour also improve?

睡眠呼吸障碍（SBD）很常见，约有10%的儿童受到影响。然而，先前的研究表明，睡眠障碍通常没有被认识到，也没有被认为是足够重要的，不足以向全科医生报告。因此，澳大利亚儿童睡眠障碍的真实发生率尚不清楚。然而，即使是最轻微的SBD，原发性打鼾，也与白天学习、记忆、智力、注意力和问题行为的严重缺陷有关。在严重的儿童SBD病例中（即睡眠呼吸暂停综合征），切除扁桃体和腺样体已被证明可以改善学习和行为问题。因此，医生面临越来越大的压力，需要通过手术来治疗儿童的原发性打鼾，以改善他们的智力功能。然而，最近在儿童身上的证据表明，在一到两年的时间里，多达50%的儿童打鼾会自然消失。除了手术的风险外，大量打鼾自然消退的儿童表明，治疗原发性打鼾的压力可能是不合理的。这项研究将首次确定澳大利亚社区儿童打鼾和相关问题的患病率。我们还旨在发现打鼾和相关的智力缺陷是否会在童年时期持续存在。我们将在5-10岁的儿童中识别频繁打鼾者和健康的非打鼾者，使用父母问卷。然后，我们将对75名打鼾者和75名不打鼾者进行更详细的研究，通过夜间睡眠研究和间隔两年的问卷调查来监测他们，看看打鼾、智力功能和行为问题是否会随着时间的推移而持续存在。这一信息将通过确定儿童SBD的患病率和学习、记忆和行为等相关缺陷的持续存在，改善澳大利亚儿童的健康。

Sleep breathing disorders (SBD) are common and affect around 10% of all children. Previous research however has shown that sleep disorders are often not recognised or considered important enough to report to general practitioners. Thus, the true incidence of sleep disorders in Australian children is not known. Nevertheless, even the mildest SBD, primary snoring, has been associated with significant deficits in daytime learning, memory, intelligence, attention and problematic behaviour. In severe cases of childhood SBD (i.e. sleep apnoea syndrome), removal of the tonsils and adenoids has been shown to improve the learning and behaviour problems. Thus there is increasing pressure on doctors to treat primary snoring in children with surgery to improve their intellectual functioning. However, recent evidence in children has shown that snoring may resolve naturally in up to 50% of cases over one to two years. In addition to the risks of surgery, the large number of children who may have a natural resolution of snoring suggestst that the pressure to treat primary snoring in may not be justified. This study will be the first to determine the prevalence of childhood snoring and associated problems in the Australian community. We also aim to discover whether snoring and the associated intellectual deficits persist over time during childhood. We will identify frequent snorers and healthy non-snorers in children aged 5-10 years old, using parental questionnaires. We will then study 75 snorers and 75 non-snorers in more detail, monitoring them with overnight sleep studies and questionnaires 2 years apart, to see if snoring, intellectual function and behavioural problems persist over time. This information will improve the health of Australian children by determining the prevalence of childhood SBD and persistence of associated deficits such as in learning, memory and behaviour.