Sleep
Articles
What Is Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea is a common disorder in which you have one or
more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep.
Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes.
They often occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Typically,
normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud
snort or choking sound.
Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition that
disrupts your sleep 3 or more nights each week. You often
move out of deep sleep and into light sleep when your breathing
pauses or becomes shallow.
This results in poor sleep quality that makes you tired
during the day. Sleep apnea is one of the leading causes
of excessive daytime sleepiness.
Overview
Sleep apnea often goes undiagnosed. Doctors usually can't
detect the condition during routine office visits. Also,
there are no blood tests for the condition.
Most people who have sleep apnea don't know they have it
because it only occurs during sleep. A family member and/or
bed partner may first notice the signs of sleep apnea.
The most common type of sleep apnea is obstructive sleep
apnea. This most often means that the airway has collapsed
or is blocked during sleep. The blockage may cause shallow
breathing or breathing pauses.
When you try to breathe, any air that squeezes past the
blockage can cause loud snoring. Obstructive sleep apnea
happens more often in people who are overweight, but it
can affect anyone.
Central sleep apnea is a less common type of sleep apnea.
It happens when the area of your brain that controls your
breathing doesn't send the correct signals to your breathing
muscles. You make no effort to breathe for brief periods.
Central sleep apnea often occurs with obstructive sleep
apnea, but it can occur alone. Snoring doesn't typically
happen with central sleep apnea.
This article mainly focuses on obstructive sleep apnea.
Read
More about Sleep Apnea
The Greek word "apnea" literally means "without
breath." There are three types of apnea: obstructive,
central, and mixed; of the three, obstructive is the most
common. Despite the difference in the root cause of each
type, in all three, people with untreated sleep apnea stop
breathing repeatedly during their sleep, sometimes hundreds
of times during the night and often for a minute or longer.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is caused by a blockage of
the airway, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of
the throat collapses and closes during sleep. In central
sleep apnea, the airway is not blocked but the brain fails
to signal the muscles to breathe. Mixed apnea, as the name
implies, is a combination of the two. With each apnea event,
the brain briefly arouses people with sleep apnea in order
for them to resume breathing, but consequently sleep is
extremely fragmented and of poor quality.
Sleep apnea is very common, as common as adult diabetes,
and affects more than twelve million Americans, according
to the National Institutes of Health. Risk factors include
being male, overweight, and over the age of forty, but sleep
apnea can strike anyone at any age, even children. Yet still
because of the lack of awareness by the public and healthcare
professionals, the vast majority remain undiagnosed and
therefore untreated, despite the fact that this serious
disorder can have significant consequences.
Untreated, sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure and
other cardiovascular disease, memory problems, weight gain,
impotency, and headaches. Moreover, untreated sleep apnea
may be responsible for job impairment and motor vehicle
crashes. Fortunately, sleep apnea can be diagnosed and treated.
Several treatment options exist, and research into additional
options continues.
Home Diagnostics for CPAP
At Home Sleep Study Has Been Approved
Until a few weeks ago, a sleep study to diagnose different
forms of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) meant sleeping overnight
in a lab setting with a multitude of wires attached to your
body, and constant interruptions by lab technicians. All
of these things meant that a good night sleep was not likely,
and, scheduling this event was usually difficult because
of normal family constraints.
CMS, the oversight authority for Medicare has been considering
the situation associated with Sleep Labs, costs, and necessity
of the “in Lab” sleep study and has given temporary
approval for “at home” sleep studies. What this
means to the patient is that they will no longer need to
sleep anywhere other than their own bed to obtain a quality
sleep study. In addition, with CMS approval, most private
insurance companies with follow suit and provide coverage
for this type of sleep study.
The at home diagnostic equipment can be obtained from Home
Care Providers. This equipment will be provided for one
night. It will contain a few connections, and a small recording
unit, and a cannula to measure breathing. After the sleep
session has been recorded, the device will be returned for
analysis. If it is determined that conditions are met for
Sleep Apnea, a prescription can be generated for a CPAP
machine.
While there are some limitations to this procedure, it is
expected to help reach thousands of sleep disorder breathing
patients who were otherwise undiagnosed.
Consult your physician for more details.
Debbie Delaune
www.qualitycpap.com
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