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November 2016 – Assembly of National Sleep Societies (ANSS)

Assembly of National Sleep Societies (ANSS)

During the ANSS meeting 28-30th of April 2016 in Bruxelles, we investigated the possibility to create a number of task forces to encourage a more extensive involvement of the ANSS Presidents and representatives and verify whether ANSS can become a laboratory for innovative advances in the field of sleep.  All task forces shall include at least one ANSS EC member and one member from the ESRS board or suggested by the ESRS board.

Accordingly, all ANSS members with an interest in participating in one or more of these task forces were asked to send a short CV directly to the chairs of the specific task forces.

Now that the deadline for application has passed (October 15) the ANSS EC is checking the list of potential members who wish to be involved. This will allow the ANSS EC to define the exact amount of task forces, which can begin the more operational phase for methodology, data collection and outcomes.

Preliminary analysis indicates that great interest was raised by Beyond the AHI. New diagnostic methods for sleep disordered breathing. This task force aims at investigating the role of other diagnostic methods beyond the AHI to diagnose sleep disordered breathing in different populations (children, adults, elderly, pregnancy etc) by standardized literature review and provide suggestions for future research on promising diagnostic methods that could be developed for clinical use.

In the meantime, we have started the preparation of the next ANSS meeting that will take place in Reykjavik (Iceland) May 5-7, 2017. The meeting will be locally organized by Erna Sif Arnadottir and other members of the Iceland Sleep Research Society board. The program will allow all particpants to highlight the activities and educational programs carried out in the different European countries and share updated information on how the EU Directive on obstructive sleep apnea and daytime sleepiness is locally applied.  Further details on the agenda, including the scientific features and proposals, will be available soon.

Finally, ANSS has acquired a new fan. Beside the historical solid support from Philips, this year Bioproject will be part of the sponsorship. A sign of the growing ANSS attraction and reliability.

Liborio Parrino
Chair, EC ANSS