What is Sleep Apnea?

Sleep Apnea is a sleep disorder that is characterized by stoppages, or pauses in breathing when one is sleeping. Each episode (also known as “apnea” in Greek) lasts just long enough so that one or more breaths are “missed” – meaning you stop breathing during periods in your sleep. The standard apnoeic episode is defined as a 10-second interval between breaths, with either a blood oxygen desaturation of 3-4% or greater, or a neurological arousal, or both.

A sleep study is used to diagnose sleep apnea with an overnight stay at a sleep lab using a machine called a polysomnogram.

In the clinical sense. significant levels of sleep apnea is defined as 5 more or more episodes per hour. There are (3) three distinct forms of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and complex (which means a combination of central and obstructive).

Many people are unaware that they have sleep apnea, regardless of which type they have, even during periods when they are awake. Symptoms may manifest themselves for years (even decades) without people even knowing that they have this disorder. In many cases, it is other people who witness these symptoms or their effects on the person’s body before sleep apnea is suspected.

Symptoms are often characterized by daytime sleepiness, fatigue, and various levels of sleep disturbance (i.e. – waking up suddenly in the middle of the night).

Obstructive Sleep Apnea or OSA is the most common form of sleep disordered breathing. In this case, the muscle tone of the human body ordinarily relaxes or is at ease during sleep. The throat is the human airway which is made up of collapsible walls of soft tissue. These tissues, once collapsed during sleep, can obstruct breathing.

Mild sleep apnea, which many people suffer from when their airways are blocked during an upper respiratory infection, may not be as important as chronic obstructive sleep apnea which requires treatment to prevent low blood Oxygen levels, sleep deprivations, and other complications.

Seniors are more likely to have sleep apnea than younger people, and men are more inclined to have OSA than women and children, although it is not an uncommon condition in women and children as well.

The risk of OSA is heightened by a heavy body weight, or a high body mass index (BMI), active smoking, and age. Also, people who have borderline Type 2 diabetes are 3X more likely to have OSA.

Common symptoms are: snoring, restlessness during sleep, and daytime sleepiness or fatigue. Diagnostic tests include home oximetry or polysomnography in a sleep lab.

Other diseases associated with sleep apnea are hypertension, cardiac failure, arrhythmia, or cardiovascular diseases. The disease is a serious disorder that is also associated with driving accidents, which happens when people with the disorder invariably fall asleep during daytime due to the lack of rest of the body the night or nights before.

Although, sleep apnea is a serious disorder that requires treatment, it can be controlled by treatment.

Once your physician (or dentist) screens you for possible OSA, testing for sleep apnea can be done in one of 2 ways: Traditionally, testing for sleep apnea has been done at a diagnostic testing facility or a sleep center. However, recent regulation changes now allow for testing to be done at home, which is a great convenience for those who would otherwise procrastinate or not get tested at all if the tests are done in a Sleep Lab.

Home testing for sleep apnea is NOT for everyone. But a test is essential to diagnose this potentially life-threatening disorder. Home sleep testing can be a valuable first step in determining treatment options for sleep apnea.