NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Elderly and middle-aged adults with obstructive sleep apnea may be a bigger drain on healthcare services than their counterparts without the common sleep disorder, new research suggests.

People with obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, stop breathing for short periods of time during sleep. It occurs when soft tissues in the back of the throat relax and temporarily block the airway. The condition is frequently seen in individuals who are obese and those who snore.

Research has suggested that adults with untreated OSA are high consumers of healthcare resources, investigators report in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Dr. Ariel Tarasiuk, of Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel, and colleagues analysed healthcare costs among 158 elderly adults, aged 67 to 89 years and 1,166 middle-aged adults who were 40 to 64 years old, during the two years prior to being diagnosed with OSA.

They compared these costs with those of with age and gender matched controls without the sleep disorder.

The researchers found that healthcare costs were nearly two-fold higher among the two sleep apnea groups, compared with the controls.

Healthcare costs were also nearly two times higher among elderly sleep apnea patients compared with middle-aged sleep apnea patients, the investigators report.