Playing a Bassoon Protects Against Sleep Apnea

By Paula Moyer, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today Published: June 10, 2009 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner

SEATTLE, June 10 -- Compared with other members of an orchestra, musicians who played a high-resistance woodwind instrument were less likely to develop obstructive sleep apnea, researchers found.

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In a study of 901 professional musicians, the woodwind players also had a lower risk of apnea than did singers or conductors, according to Christopher P. Ward, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, who reported the findings at the meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies here.

High-resistance woodwind instruments are those in the double-reed category, such as oboes, English horns, and bassoons.

The protective effect was only observed in those musicians who practiced an average of three hours a day, Dr. Ward said.

A musician himself -- he plays the trumpet and once served as interim band conductor at a college where he was teaching -- Dr. Ward said he did not know the exact mechanism that protects double-reed musicians.

Based on results of this study, Dr. Ward theorized that training sleep apnea patients to play double-reed instruments could be therapeutic. /.../