Sleep Apnea

There are two types of sleep apnea: obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a dangerous sleep disorder in which there is obstruction of the airway during sleep. When sufferers fall asleep, their tongues, along with the tissues making up the soft palate, relax and lose muscle tone. Ultimately these soft tissues collapse into the back of the airway completing a total obstruction of the breath stream. When breathing stops, oxygen de-saturation in the brain begins with a concomitant build-up of carbon dioxide levels. These conditions force the sleeper to arouse and gasp for breath. These incidents of apnea can occur as often as 80 times per hour throughout the night, meaning that constant arousals prevent the patient from cycling through the four stages of N-REM and one stage of REM sleep in the way that nature intended.

The symptoms of OSA patients include chronic daytime fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, stress, daytime headaches, sexual dysfunction, poor memory, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cardiac arrhythmia, and heart attack.

Central sleep apnea is a neurological condition that arises when the brain fails to tell the lungs to fill with air. This happens most often as people are falling asleep. This is most common in people who have suffered from a stroke or have heart disease. Loud snoring is not a factor with central sleep apnea, unlike obstructive sleep apnea.