Sleep Apnea
Essay Preview: Sleep Apnea
Report this essay
Sleep is essential to life; it is one of several components, including food and water, which keep the living alive. However, a significant percentage of the human population has considerable difficulty reaching and maintaining Stage IV within their sleeping patterns, the stage that allows the mind and body to fall into a deep and restorative sleep, otherwise known as REM sleep(
According to the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, about 38,000 Americans die of sleep disorder related problems each year (
There are three types of apnea: Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), the most common, caused when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses and closes. The second type is Central Sleep Apnea; instead of the airway collapsing the brain fails to signal the muscles to breath. The third type is Mixed Apnea and as the name suggests it is a combination of OSA and Central Apnea(
OSA is a vastly undiagnosed and untreated disorder and is becoming one of America’s most serious general health issues. As more research is conducted the standard risk factors being used by practitioners to diagnose and treat OSA are becoming obsolete. The factors used for diagnosing OSA were limited to overweight males in there 40’s; it is now known that OSA affects men and women of any age and children. The first sleep disorder was identified in 1956. The disorder was named “Pickwickian Syndrome” patients that suffered from this syndrome were all overweight and experiencing daytime sleepiness. The name Pickwickian comes from a Charles Dickens play “Pickwick Papers” one of the characters-Joe the fat boy-was so sleepy he fell asleep standing up (
In 1970 Dr. Dement founded the worlds first sleep disorders center at Stanford University introducing all-night polysomnographic examination of patients with sleep related complaints. He and partner Christian Guilleminault then started conducting the all-night tests on patients visiting the clinic thought to either have Picwickian Syndrome or Narcolepsy, a condition that was also diagnosed early on for daytime sleepiness. The results of his initial testing found that 90% of the patients tested with the all-night polysomnographic examination had OSA (
The health risks can become deadly over time, most people with OSA do not seek medical attention until a partner complains about loud snoring or they are experiencing irregular breaths. Symptoms include obesity, a large neck, snoring, choking in sleep, hypertension, memory loss, weight gain, impotency, excessive daytime sleepiness, and headaches. In addition OSA is associated with cardiovascular diseases, stroke, renal problems and glaucoma (
Dr. Naresh M. Punjabi of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute led a