背景與目的：
阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症的特徵是在睡眠的過程中反覆的發生上呼吸道部分阻塞及完全阻塞的情形，會導致阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症的原因可能包括上呼吸道解剖性的損傷、呼吸道通氣不穩定以及口咽肌肉失能。此疾病造成的間歇性缺氧會增加系統性的發炎反應以及讓氧化壓力惡化。近年來阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症被證實與心血管疾病的存活率有強烈的相關性，其中一個造成心血管疾病的關鍵原因是發炎反應。因此我們設計一個為期12週的物理治療訓練介入，並測量參與者在介入前後的臨床以及生化參數的變化。
方法：
本研究採用單盲的隨機分配。有15個被診斷為阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症的病患加入這個研究，並且在訓練介入前後收集基本資料、體積描計、睡眠檢查、舌頭和呼吸肌肉表現、六分鐘行走測試以及發炎表現。
結果：
介入組與控制組在介入前的結果上沒有顯著的差異。但是介入組在12週的介入後顯著的改善疾病的嚴重程度、舌頭和呼吸肌肉表現、六分鐘行走測試以及發炎表現。與控制組比較也有顯著的進步。
結論：
我們的結果顯示物理治療訓練對於中重度的阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症病患是個有效的替代性療法。這個訓練可以改善內皮細胞的發炎反應以及阻塞性睡眠呼吸中止症病患的臨床和生化效應。

Background and Purpose:
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by repetitive events of complete and partial obstructions of the upper airway during sleep, which might be caused by multiple pathogeneses primarily including upper airway (UA) anatomic impairment, ventilatory drive instability, and oropharyngeal muscle dysfunction. These events cause intermittent hypoxia will increase the systemic inflammation and deteriorates the oxidative stress. Recently, OSA is strongly associated with comorbidity of cardiovascular diseases and one determining pathway of cardiovascular diseases is dominated by inflammatory process. Therefore, we designed a physical therapy training with 12 weeks intervention to investigate both the clinical and biological effects for OSA patients.
Methods:
We conduct a randomized controlled trial with participants and assessors blinded. There were 15 diagnosed OSA patients were recruited and then collected demography characterizes, plethysmograph, polysomnography, tongue and respiratory muscle performance, six-minute walk test, and inflammatory expression between pre- and post- intervention. Statistical analysis was operated by SPSS version 17.0.
Results:
Baseline data of OSAS participants between two groups are similar. The participants significantly improved severity of OSA, clinical outcome, and biological effects after 12-week physical therapy training in the intervention group.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that this physical therapy training is a promising alternative treatment for moderate OSAS to severe OSAS. This training for OSA patients may improve the inflammatory expression of endothelial cell as well. The intervention was proven the clinical and biological effects for OSA patients.

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