...Sleep Apnea and Cardiovascular Disease Snoring is a common disorder that affects millions of people around the world. Snoring occurs during sleep and most people who snores do not realize that they snore, unless told by others who hear them produce a snoring sound. Even though normal snoring is not dangerous to human health, having repeated breathing stops during the snoring process can be life threatening to the snorer. According to the American Heart Association (2012) study, having repeated breathing stops during the snoring process is dangerous and can result in the development of cardiovascular problems and even death. This condition is known as sleep apnea. In this respect, an individual with sleep apnea experiences repeated breathing stops for as many as thirty times in an hour when asleep. Such episodes are dangerous for the snorer since it increases the risk of developing heart failure, high blood pressure, stroke, and arrhythmia. Research shows that one in every five people suffers from sleep apnea. America, in particular, has one of the highest incidences of people with the disease. According to Lettieri (2010), about 15 million adults suffer from obstructive sleep apnea in America. The majority of people with sleep apnea are patients with cardiovascular problems and hypertension. As earlier mentioned, this condition is life threatening and require early treatment. This document will examine the historical evidence of the disease, its causes, and its clinical effects...
Words: 608 - Pages: 3
...What is Sleep Apnea? * Sleep apnea is a disorder that affects the way a person breathes while sleeping. * The normal breathing pattern is interrupted and causes shallow breathing or breathing to cease for ten seconds or more throughout the night. * People who suffer from sleep apnea tend to spend more time in light sleep rather than in deep sleep. Three Types of Sleep Apnea * Obstructive Sleep Apnea This is the most common type of sleep apnea. A person who has obstructive sleep apnea tends to snore loudly. This is caused by the soft tissue in the back of the throat relaxing, which then constricts the airways, making it difficult to breathe. * Central Sleep Apnea Central sleep apnea is not as common as obstructive sleep apnea. This occurs when the brain fails to communicate to the muscles that control breathing. If someone has central sleep apnea, they often do not snore. * Complex Sleep Apnea This is a combination of both obstructive sleep apnea and central sleep apnea. Did You Know? * Approximately 18 million people suffer from sleep apnea. * Out of these 18 million people, many of them are not being treated. * While asleep, patients sleep with their mouth open, which causes dry mouth (Xerostomia). The mouth is more susceptible to bacteria and fungi due to a lack of saliva. * Sleep apnea can cause memory loss, morning headaches/irritability, depression, and an inability to focus...
Words: 355 - Pages: 2
...Sleep apnea is a lung disease that can sometimes go unnoticed, yet it affects more than 12 million Americans. There are three types of sleep apnea including obstructive, central, and complex, with obstructive being the most common form. It actually causes you to stop breathing while you sleep. It could last anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute. Many people with sleep apnea may find that they wake up numerous times during the night with a snort or slightly choking. They may wake up in the morning with a sore throat or a headache. For some, the only symptoms noticed are insomnia or just that they feel very tired throughout the day, as they are clearly not sleeping very well due to the disease. We know that air flows in through the oral or nasal cavity to the alveoli and then from the alveoli to the oral or nasal cavity to be released back into the atmosphere. With sleep apnea the passageway becomes completely obstructed and keeps oxygen from entering the bloodstream. Awake, the airway muscle tone helps keep the airways patent. While asleep, decreased airway muscle tone and the pull of gravity in the supine position, further decrease the size of the passageway. As the disease progresses, the passageway becomes more and more obstructed as tissue collapses. It is diagnosed by checking oxygen levels in blood, testing heart, lung, and brain activity, and checking breathing patterns while you sleep. It is more common among men, and there have recently been patterns found among the...
Words: 409 - Pages: 2
...Sleep Apnea Most people do not think of snoring as something to be overly concerned about. But frequent, loud snoring is one of the major signs of sleep apnea, a common and potentially serious sleeping disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts as you sleep. However, just because you snore does not mean you have sleep apnea. The biggest sign of sleep apnea is how you feel during the day, such as daytime sleepiness, slow reflexes, or poor concentration. Normal snoring usually does not interfere with the quality of your sleep. Although sleep apnea is treatable, it often goes unrecognized. There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and complex; of the three, obstructive sleep apnea is the most common. Despite the difference of each type, in all three, people with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing during their sleep, sometimes hundreds of times during the night and often for a minute or longer. Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type of sleep apnea and is caused by obstruction of the upper airway. People who have obstructive sleep apnea are usually unaware of having difficulty breathing, even upon waking up. Certain people have a higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea, such as overweight people, males, smokers, people over the age of 65, or if you are related to someone who suffers from it. There other risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea that include certain physical attributes, such as having a thick neck, deviated septum, receding...
Words: 1230 - Pages: 5
...3/7/13 Sleep Apnea Approximately 30 million Americans are victims of a sleep disorder called Sleep apnea. Many millions more are predisposed and have a high risk of developing the illness. If you are and adult male, the odds are about 50/50 that your breathing is not normal when you are sleeping. Sleep apnea is a recurrent episode during sleep when their throat closes and they cannot breathe correctly. This happens because the muscles that normally hold the throat open during wakefulness relax during sleep and allow it to narrow. When the throat is partially closed and/or the muscles relax too much, trying to inhale will suck the throat completely closed and air can’t pass through at all. This is also an example of sleep apnea. A cessation of breathing must last 10 seconds or more to be called an apnea. Sleep apnea episodes can last as long as two minutes and are almost always associated with a reduction in the level of oxygen in the blood. When an individual is in the midst of an sleep apnea occurrence, as long as sleep continues, the apnea continues. It is only terminated and waking up saves the victim’s life. This arousal instantly increases the activity of the muscles of the tongue and throat muscles that enlarge the airway. The victim will be able to breathe and to once again fill the lungs with life-giving oxygen. This cycle may be repeated hundreds of times a night while the sufferer has no idea it is happening. Depending on the degree of severity, sleep apnea is a...
Words: 436 - Pages: 2
...Research Paper Sleep Apnea Colin Bush Mrs. Shumock PSYCHOLOGY November 11, 2015 Sleep Apnea Sleep apnea is a common sleeping disorder that repeatedly blocks the air -way limiting the amount of oxygen that reaches the lungs. This is a serious disorder that causes one to stop breathing while sleeping- apnea meaning no breath. Although not breathing is common in all sleep apnea patients, there are various other symptoms and causes and treatments of this disorder. Sleep Apnea’s Symptoms has many different types of symptoms. About 18million American have sleep apnea, however very few have been diagnosed with it. Activity such as a loud snoring, awaking many times in the night gasping for a breath of air, waking up with a sore or dry throat, sleepiness during the day and morning headaches, sudden mood changes, restless sleep, and lack of energy during the day. Some risk factors also involved in sleep apnea include: being overweight, a male, related to someone who has sleep apnea, over the age of 65, black, Hispanic, or a pacific Islander, and a smoker. Studies say that Sleep Apnea is highly found in young African...
Words: 642 - Pages: 3
...SLEEP APNOEA Sleep Apnoea is the obstruction of airflow in and out of the lungs which mainly occurs during sleep. When a person is asleep, the muscles of the nose, mouth and throat usually relax which causes the airways to close up therefore preventing air from getting in or out freely. The cessation of breathing can be clinically significant if it lasts for up to 10 seconds. It occurs mainly due to lack of muscle tone in the upper airway. When the breathing stops, the brain in turn automatically wakes you up. This is accompanied by the act of snoring with frequent uniform periods whereby one wakes up in order to breathe again. This interrupted sleeping makes the affected person to feel sleepy during daytime. This condition indicates that they have an airway that is more likely to collapse than normal. The brain on its part senses that there is a drop in oxygen supply and in turn alerts you to wake up. These periods are normally characterized by deep breathes and enables a person to go back to sleep. These instances of waking up and again can happen hundreds of time in one night. One does not realize because they fall back to sleep once the gasp of breath and choking is relieved. There are three types of sleep apnoea which have been described. Firstly, obstructive sleep apnoea is usually caused by the muscles of the throat relaxing too much thereby closing up when one is asleep. Secondly, central sleep apnoea occurs when the brain fails to give signals of breathing during sleeping...
Words: 511 - Pages: 3
...Obstructive Sleep Apnea in adults Demographic Paper Walter Pacheco HCS 490 Health Care Consumer trends and Marketing Tuesday 13, 2012 Melinda O'Brien Obstructive Sleep Apnea in adults Demographic Paper This paper is about the demographics on obstructive sleep apnea on adults comparing between Hispanic (Baldwin, Rernaga-Ornelas, Caudillo-Cisneros, Márquez-Gamiño, & Quan, 2012), African American, and Caucasian populations (Ram, Seirawan, Kumar, & Clark, 2009). Data shows how each of these groups are affected by obstructive sleep apnea and why income affects Hispanics, African Americans, and Caucasians differently. The impact obstructive sleep apnea has in the health care market (AlGhanim, Comondore, Fleetham, Marra, & Ayas, 2007). How and why the changes in demographics of these three populations affect health care (AlGhanim, Comondore, Fleetham, Marra, & Ayas, 2007). Two key health care related challenges Hispanics, African Americans, and Caucasians may experience with health care are costs, and in-home care (Hillman, Murphy, & Pezzullo, 2006). This paper will describe how a wellness program can affect the cost of health care and in-home care for the three groups, and the services available for any who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (Downey III, Mosenifar, Gold, Rowley, Wickramasinghe, Sharma, Talavera, Ouellette, & Tino, 2012). Finally this paper will give examples on how an individual, the community, and society can address these...
Words: 2536 - Pages: 11
...One of the most common types of sleep apneas is obstructive sleep apnea. It is identified by recurrent episodes of partial or complete upper airway blockage during sleep. The upper airway and the throat collapse during sleep and the patient loses breath for seconds then the throat reopens when the patient awakes. (1) In addition, the diaphragm and chest muscles increases their respiratory efforts against the airway obstruction, which results in snoring and loud gasps. (2) Two common signs characterize obstructive sleep apnea. First, snoring that is loud and regular to the patient. Second, daytime sleepiness, which is the inability of remaining fully awake during daytime that results in fatigue and falling asleep during the day. Other symptoms that are less frequent include fragmented sleep, sensation of chocking and sore throat after awakening, poor concentration, morning headaches, irritability and depression. (3) The diagnosis of OSA is made through a polysomnography (PSG), which is an in-laboratory test that monitors the oxygen level, brain waves activity, and breathing patterns of the patient during sleep. After the PSG, a differential diagnosis is made to eliminate other sleeping...
Words: 929 - Pages: 4
...The Dangers of Sleep Apnea: Why It's Important That You Get Medical Help Sleep apnea is a serious medical condition that affects approximately six percent of the population. Even worse, up to four percent of the population has an undiagnosed case of sleep apnea, which occurs when the body continually stops and starts breathing during sleep. The breathing cessations can last anywhere from a few seconds to a minute. There are two main types of sleep apnea: obstructive and central. Regardless of the different root causes, each one has serious consequences that are harmful and even be life threatening. http://www.sleepdisordersguide.com/sleepapnea/sleep-apnea-statistics.html Serious Sleep Problems The breathing pauses from sleep apnea can occur...
Words: 604 - Pages: 3
...he most common form of sleep apnea is “Obstructive Sleep Apnea”, a condition where the airways are blocked, causing breathing to be briefly interrupted multiple times during the night. Up until relatively recently, the standard of care for sleep apnea has been the CPAP machine, where air pressure is applied through a nasal mask. In 2006 the American Academy of Sleep Medicine included oral appliances as a first line of therapy for mild to moderate Obstructive Sleep Apnea and studies have repeatedly validated their efficacy. In Oral Appliance Therapy, an oral appliance is placed in the mouth and worn much like a mouth guard. It acts to keep your airways open. Oral appliances are also used to control snoring. Who provides Oral Appliance Therapy?...
Words: 1346 - Pages: 6
...What are the differences between sleep apnea and Insomnia? How do we treat us the two? How has the FDA halted the treatment of sleep apnea? Researchers have long wanted to know the answers to these questions and they have them. There are key differences between Insomnia and Sleep apnea. Along with appropriate pharmacologic treatments, Doctors have discovered plenty of ways to help with the disorders. The research is there and can teach one all about it if they so choose to find it. The research available has been very helpful in writing many essays on the topic of both disorders and many have found them very helpful in writing their own essays. First of all what is Sleep Apnea? Obstructive sleep apnea affects up to four percent of middle aged adults the common complaints that come with are snoring, daytime sleepiness and disrupted sleep {Victor LD, Am Fam Physician, 1999, Nov 15;60(8):2279-86. National Stroke Foundation, 2005, www.stroke.org.} Apnea is the Greek word for without breath. Sleep apnea causes you to stop breathing for at least 10 seconds while you are sleeping, many times throughout the night. Sleep apnea however does not cause many problems with you breathing throughout the day. The risk factors for sleep apnea are age usually between 40 and 60 is the highest risk. Ethnicity with African-American, Pacific Islanders and Hispanic being the highest risk. Smoking drinking and some medical conditions such as diabetes also put you at a higher risk {Victor...
Words: 1212 - Pages: 5
...Winningham’s Critical Thinking Cases in Nursing: Case Study 20: “Obstructive Sleep Apnea” Directions: * Answer the following questions and statements. * Each question is assigned a point value. * Submit the completed worksheet to the Dropbox no later than Day 7 of Unit 3. * Your instructor will post the grade for this Assignment in the Gradebook no later than Day 7 of Unit 4. Scenario: S.R. is a 69-year-old man who presents to the clinic because his “wife complains that his snoring is difficult to live with.” 1. As the clinic nurse, what routine information would you want to obtain from S.R.? (2 points) I would want to obtain a smoking history (if any). I would want to know about their sleep: the hours of sleep obtained per night, if they are waking frequently through the night, their posture during sleep. Information I would want to obtain would also include if they wake up feeling tired, if they awake frequently during the night, if they fall asleep during the day, if they awake with a headache, and if they are irritable or angry in the morning. I would want to assess vital signs (to include oxygen saturation level), history of recent illness/respiratory infection, any changes in weight, trouble breathing through the nose, stressors, and difficulty concentrating. I would also ask the wife how loudly he snores and if she notices a pause in his breathing. CASE STUDY PROGRESS After interviewing S.R., you note the following: * S.R. is...
Words: 1383 - Pages: 6
...Sleep Apnea, the Silent Killer Sleep is just as necessary as food and water is to humans. It is important for recharging the body’s internal functioning systems, as well as to recover from the everyday stress of the waking world. However, there are over 12 million Americans out there suffering from a silent disease that is preventing them from achieving quality sleep rest, and that is because they have an untreated sleep disorder called obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). This disorder is characterized by marked repetitive episodes of breathing cessation ten seconds or longer, that occurs during at night while a person sleeps. During this time, their oxygen saturation drops, resulting in hypoxemia. These disturbances during sleep over time may affect...
Words: 328 - Pages: 2
...An estimated 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disturbances; these disturbances can have severe consequences. The most common sleep disorder, obstructive sleep apnea, can result in significant clinical risks, increased morbidity and mortality, and decreased quality of life (Peppard et al., 2013; Punjabi, 2008; Rosen, Zozula, Jahn, & Carson, 2001). Obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, is a disorder in which the airway narrows or closes during sleep resulting in hypoxia and disruption in sleep stage. In 2007 the estimated prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) was 3-7% of adult males and 2-5% of adult females (Punjabi, 2008). Recent population-based studies have estimated rates as high as 50% for moderate to severe OSA (Punjabi, 2008;...
Words: 640 - Pages: 3
