Sleep Apnea In Adults

Sleep apnea is a common sleeping disorder where a person has experiences of not breathing during sleep. Over 20 million Americans, mostly overweight men, suffer from sleep apnea. Despite these numbers, sleep apnea is often not treated directly because its symptoms are thought to be those of depression, stress, or just loud snoring. There may be a genetic component to this disorder as it often occurs within families.People with sleep apnea stop breathing for at least 10 seconds at a time; these short stops in breathing can happen up to 400 times every night.

2. The majority of sufferers have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA is when the muscles around the base of your tongue and uvula relax during sleep and move backwards to obstruct your airway. This places stress on the heart, elevates blood pressure, and prevents restful sleep.

breaths while sleeping. The pauses typically last between 10 to 20 seconds and happen up to

Sleep apnea is becoming increasingly more concerning for the association this sleep disorder poses to the psychological effects on people. Sleep deprivation is only one example of the effects caused by this medical condition which could be related to increased anxiety and depression. Millions of Americans suffer from sleep apnea without even realizing the sleep disorder is creating a problem. There has been significant progress in identifying sleep apnea, especially obstructive sleep apnea, and creating successful methods to help individuals more easily live with it. The thought of losing breath while sleeping without knowing this is occurring can intimidate an individual and his or her family.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea may be caused by either structural defect, swelling to airway passages, obesity, or the muscles are unable to support the airway due to loss of muscle tone during sleep. Structural defects include deviated septum, which narrows the nasal canals causing airflow to increase in speed and increase the chance of airway collapse. Changes in the spinal column can cause the tongue to sit closer to the pharynx causing the airway.” Mucosal swelling to the nasal canals can be cause by allergy’s, allergic reaction, or upper airway infections.” (Ronald M. Harper, 1988) Obesity

But people who suffer from sleep apnea get a little too relaxed. If the muscles in the back of the throat become over-relaxed, they don’t properly support the soft palate, tonsils, and side walls of the throat. These all start to sag, which closes off your windpipe. Your body thinks it’s suffocating, so you suddenly start gasping for air. But because your airway isn’t really blocked, you fix the problem so fast that you don’t fully wake up. If this were to happen a few times during the night, it’s usually no problem. But sleep apnea can cause this to happen 30 or more times each hour. That means you could be waking up at least 240 times in the standard eight hours of

The cause of sleep apnea is due to a blockage of the throat muscles that keep airway flow open. Some of the reasons for the blockage can be the relaxing of throat muscles and tongue unusually, the size of your tongue and tonsils are not appropriate for the opening of your windpipe, and people with weight issues. Other reasons can be the size of your head and neck which may lead to a narrow airway passage in the mouth and throat. In addition, as people get older, the brain signals’ ability gets worse and causes throat muscles to stiffen. Consequently, airways have an increased chance of narrowing or collapsing (NIH-National heart, lung and blood Institute, 2012, causes). Snoring is one of the most known factor of sleep apnea, and

Since the dawn of time humans, for some reason or another has had difficulty with sleep. The cause could vary from the rock pillow was too hard to a pea under the mattress. We have now come to learn that a disorder called sleep apnea could be the reason. According to the National Institutes of Health approximately 12 million United States citizens were afflicted by this disorder (Singer). The Greek word Apnea means without breath and sleep apnea is an involuntary cessation of breathing that occurs while a person is asleep (American Sleep Apnea Association). There are three different types of sleep apnea, when the back of the throat closes called Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), for Central Sleep Apnea the brain “forgets” to signal muscles to

Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder in which breathing is interrupted repeatedly during sleep. “APNEA” means a breathing pause that lasts about 10 seconds. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is most common in people who are overweight.

Central sleep apnea. This kind happens when the part of the brain that controls breathing does not send the correct signals to the muscles that control breathing.

​Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) occurs when the airway in the throat close repeatedly during sleep disrupting the person’s normal sleep cycle. It causes apneas, arousals, and loud snoring. In contrast to central sleep apnea, OSA is commonly recognized by an individual’s bed partner. However, the most conclusive method of diagnosing OSA is clinical evaluation and overnight polysomnography studies.5 OSA is the most common form of sleep apnea in the ESRD population.2

Sleep is an important part of everyone’s health and the core of our wellbeing. With that being said, we have also had our share of experiencing a bad night’s sleep at one time or another. Imagine having a sleep disorder in which your breathing is constantly disrupting the quality of your sleep at night. Sleep Apnea is a common disorder where your breathing stops or pauses while you are asleep. Often times the sleeper is unaware of this involuntary cessation of breathing and it can occur up to hundreds of times a night. There are three different types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed. Of the three, the most common is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which occurs when the airway becomes blocked during sleep, creating short breathing

Sleep apnea is usually a chronic condition that disrupts ones sleep. [3] It entails pauses in breathing

Meanwhile, in Central Sleep Apnea symptoms include mood problems as well as occasional tiredness during the day and waking up at night. Symptoms may also include bad memory and difficulty concentrating on a given task. There is a related symptom that most people with sleep apnea get and that is sleep-related laryngospasm. Sleep-related laryngospasm is a condition in which the person sleeping suddenly wakes and feels distressed that he or she is suffocating and trying to talk comes out as a wheeze. In scarce cases, sleep apnea in children can cause developmental delay and cor pulmonale, failure of the right heart (WebMD

According to the _______ People with sleep apnea usually do not remember waking up during the night. Indications of the problem may include: Morning headaches, Excessive daytime sleepiness, Irritability and impaired mental or emotional functioning, Excessive snoring, choking, or gasping during sleep, Insomnia, Awakening with a dry mouth or sore throat.