Obstructive Sleep Apnea
What is Obstructive Sleep Apnea?
Quite simply, cessation of breathing during sleep. A normal person likely stops breathing up to 5 times an hour during sleep. However, if someone stops breathing more than 5 times, they suffer from one form of Sleep Apnea. There are three forms of Sleep Apnea:
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) the most common form occurs when tissues and muscles in the throat and the tongue collapse and block the airflow to the lungs during sleep. Despite efforts to breathe, there is no airflow, so people with OSA struggle to breathe again and again and start choking, waking up repeatedly and making normal sleep impossible. This is highly stressful on the heart, because the rest of the organs in the body are not getting enough oxygen. Central Sleep Apnea (CSA) - a neurological result of the brain not signaling the body to breathe. Mixed Sleep Apnea is a combination of OSA and CSA.
Obstructive sleep apnea is the most common form. Central sleep apnea is noted mostly in children/adults with craniofacial syndromes or adults with brain pathology as in stroke patients.