An  estimated 10% to 30% of adults snore. In some of them, snoring may have no serious medical consequences. However, for others, loud nightly snoring may be the first indication of a potentially life-threatening disorder called obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) or simply Obstructive Sleep Apnea. During sleep, respiration and heart rate decreases and blood pressure and body temperature changes. An insufficient sleep or problems affecting the functions and health.
Apnea is a temporary interruption of breathing. People suffering from sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during sleep, for periods ranging from several seconds to a minute or more.
Obstructive apnea is caused by upper airway occlusion. Apnea occurs when throat muscles and tongue relax during sleep and partially or completely blocks the airway. Risk factors may be obesity, enlarged tonsils and adenoids.
If within an hour the patient has at least ten interruptions in breathing, each lasting at least 10 seconds each, the amount of oxygen reaching the brain is insufficient. In this case, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood increases heart rate variations occur. Decrease in oxygen concentration triggers a partial awakening (arousals), together with a snore powerful and sudden inspiration. These arousals remain unnoticed by the patient, but produce a superficial sleep. This light sleep leads to poor recovery of the body during the night and daytime sleepiness and fatigue.
Patients suffering from sleep apnea often feel very tired and sleepy during the day and their ability to concentrate and daytime performance suffer dramatically.
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You may suffer daytime sleepiness that affects your work and/or social activities, and may even lead to car accidents. OSAS can also put you at risk for high blood pressure, heart failure, heart attack, or stroke. Snoring loudly every night, in all positions, calls for a visit to a sleep specialist.
you get sleepy you lose the will power to pull off the road. Dozing off while driving can have tragic consequences. Research suggests it contributes to more accidents than was previously suspected. Proper treatment can prevent or reverse the potentially life-threatening results of osas. Click this following link to see a video.
a painless process conducted on the patient at night, whereby the patient has to sleep without any sedative. A specially trained technologist puts the patient on nasal thermistar to measure the nasal air flow, a mic to record the snoring, sensors to the head, face, chest, abdomen and legs. Our State-of-the-art polysomnograph monitors brain waves, breathing, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, snoring and muscle activity during sleep. On the next day the patient will receive a complete sleep report which defines and diagnoses the sleep-related problem.
If the test is positive, then on the second night the patient sleeps with the CPAP machine, which prevents the air passage from choking. The air pressure at which the patient needs to sleep is detected by the titration machine.
