# Novel treatment of sleep apnea by upper airway and respiratory muscle training

> **NIH VA I21** · JOHN D DINGELL VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · —

## Abstract

Project Summary Abstract
Title: Novel treatment of sleep apnea by upper airway and respiratory muscle
training.
In recent years, we and others have discovered that spinal cord injury/disease (SCI/D) is
associated with significant increase in the sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) prevalence.
Nearly 80% of patients with SCI/D including Veterans suffer from SDB after six months
of injury (majority of them 70-80% are obstructive apneas and hypopneas-OSA).
However, most patients SCI/D do not tolerate standard SDB treatment (continuous
positive airway pressure-CPAP) leading to lack of compliance. Therefore, identifying
other therapies is important for this common condition that is linked to poor outcome in
the general population (heart disease, stroke, hypertension and poor cognition). It has
been reported in sleep apnea able-bodied patients that oropharyngeal muscle exercises
for 3 months using speech pathology techniques improve the severity of SDB.
Furthermore, previous studies showed respiratory muscle training (RMT) is effective for
increasing respiratory muscle strength in people with cervical SCI. However, the effect of
combined oropharyngeal and RMT on OSA in patients with SCI is unknown.
The purpose of this application is to identify new therapeutic interventions for OSA
treatment in Veterans with SCI/D. This application proposes for a pilot study to
randomizing 30 Veterans with SCI/D and OSA to receive 3 months of daily (30 minutes)
treatment with a validated set of oropharyngeal and RMT (intervention arm) versus sham
therapy (control arm). There will be three specific aims to address the following
hypotheses:
Specific Aim (1): To test recruitment rate and feasibility of a pilot intervention that
includes combined oropharyngeal and RMT versus sham treatment in individuals with
SCI/D.
Specific Aim (2): To test the acceptability and usability of combined oropharyngeal and
RMT in individuals with SCI/D.
Specific Aim (3): To determine the effect size estimates for clinical endpoints and their
associated variability at the end of treatment to calculate an appropriate sample size for
an adequately powered clinical trial.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9825389
- **Project number:** 5I21RX002885-02
- **Recipient organization:** JOHN D DINGELL VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Abdulghani Sankari
- **Activity code:** I21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-11-01 → 2021-10-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9825389

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9825389, Novel treatment of sleep apnea by upper airway and respiratory muscle training (5I21RX002885-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9825389. Licensed CC0.

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