The disease is a disorder of respiratory function, characterized by recurrent pauses in breathing during sleep and the patient’s snoring.
Sleep apnea syndrome is accompanied by intermittent pauses in a person’s breathing lasting up to 10 seconds or more. They cause a lack of oxygen in a person and an increased content of carbon dioxide in the blood. Such changes in the gas state of the blood stimulate the brain and give it an impulse to wake up and resume breathing. Then, after falling asleep, short-term cessation of breathing occurs again. There can be from 5 to 100 such episodes of nocturnal sleep apnea per hour, which disrupts normal physiological sleep. It becomes superficial, intermittent, uncomfortable and insufficient for the full recovery of the body.
Watch a short video about the mechanisms and consequences of obstructive sleep apnea.
Do you have symptoms that suggest sleep apnea? Contact our Center and we will help you effectively! Appointment by phone: +7 (495) 775-60-33.
It should be noted that snoring is not always a sign of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. There is what is called uncomplicated snoring, but it should be borne in mind that the presence of heavy snoring can be a harbinger of a more serious condition.
Who develops the disease?
Most often, the syndrome of stopping / disturbed breathing during sleep is observed in people who have the following risk factors.
- Anomalies in the structure of the pharynx: deformations of the intranasal structures and the posterior part of the nasal septum, the pathological shape of the epiglottis, as well as the presence of anatomical features of the bones of the lower jaw and upper respiratory tract – a small lower jaw, enlarged tonsils, a large tongue, an excessive number of folds on the oral mucosa.
- Overweight: Excessive development of adipose tissue in the neck and abdomen increases the load on the muscles of the throat and diaphragm.
- Age: the risk of the disease increases in proportion to the number of years lived, while, with age, sleep apnea occurs in a more severe form.
- Gender: in men, the disease occurs more often than in women, due to the difference in the distribution of adipose tissue and some features in the anatomical structure of the throat.
- Drinking alcohol and smoking.
- The period of menopause (changes in hormonal levels).
- Diabetes.
- Heredity.
Symptoms of the disease
With untimely diagnosis and lack of treatment, the syndrome of obstructive sleep apnea or hypopnea in sleep can go from mild to moderate and severe. These forms of the disease have two groups of characteristic clinical manifestations:
- Symptoms affecting the neuropsychological sphere and due to frequent awakenings with periods of cerebral hypoxia. There are complaints of constant drowsiness during the day, decreased concentration, fatigue, memory loss.
- Symptoms associated with cardiovascular manifestations – arterial hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, decreased potency.
With the progression of the disease, the clinical symptoms gradually increase, the patient may develop a myocardial infarction or a stroke in sleep. Such patients are at risk of becoming disabled, so timely diagnosis of the disease, especially its early stages, is extremely important.
The patient, who was diagnosed with sleep apnea, had previously suffered several (!) Myocardial infarctions. Watch her video interview.
Patients need adequate treatment, which is recommended to take place in sleep centers with modern diagnostic and treatment equipment and qualified medical personnel. The doctors of the Sleep Medicine Center at the Rehabilitation Clinic in Khamovniki specialize in a wide range of sleep disorders and help to successfully cope with various sleep disorders.
Currently, the Sleep Medicine Center is equipped with improved Prisma CPAP machines. Line from the new line of Weinmann – Loewenstein (Germany). Their use allows the most effective and comfortable treatment of the entire spectrum of respiratory disorders in our patients.