Effect of 10-minute oropharyngeal exercise on the apnoea–hypopnoea index

Previously reported oropharyngeal exercises are long and difficult to perform. Therefore, we created a 10-min daily oropharyngeal exercise program and conducted a study to confirm its effectiveness. Twenty-five participants whose apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI) values were greater than 5 were enrolled. All of the participants performed 10 min of exercise per day for 12 weeks and were evaluated for AHI values, tongue pressure, lip closure pressure, snoring, and Mallampati scores before and after the exercise. Twenty-two participants (88% of all participants) completed the oropharyngeal exercise. Another patient was unable to attend the last evaluation session due to illness. The AHI value improved significantly from an average of 20.9 to 16.9 times/hour in patients with a pre-exercise AHI of 5 to 30 (P = 0.0317). The AHI improvement group included younger participants than did the AHI deterioration group (P = 0.0498). Although the tongue pressures in the AHI improvement group did not improve significantly (P = 0.354), the lip closure pressures tended to increase from a median of 17.6 N to 21.3 N with oropharyngeal exercises (P = 0.0677). This novel oropharyngeal exercise may be appropriate for younger SAS patients with an AHI less than 30.