From our Partners
Michael Kenneth | President, CPAP Machines Canada
Is Sleep Apnea
Affecting Your Life?
You’ve heard of it and likely know people who suffer from it. Untreated, it makes
you two to four times more likely to be involved in a car accident, 3.7 times more
likely to suffer a stroke, and fi fty per cent more likely to suffer psychological
distress. Roughly twenty-fi ve per cent of Canadian adults suffer from some form
of sleep apnea and yet only twenty per cent have been diagnosed. So what’s
happening with this common but under-recognized condition?
While awake, our throat muscles act to keep our
airway open, making breathing easy and natural.
During sleep, our muscles — including those in
our throat — relax. In some people, this causes the
airway to narrow or close, obstructing
air fl ow. When this happens, our
heart rate and blood pressure
increase, blood oxygen levels
drop, adrenaline surges, and
our brain wakes us up to
kick-start breathing again.
In severe cases, this cycle
can happen over thirty
times per hour, putting
signifi cant strain on our
cardiovascular system
and preventing the deep,
restorative sleep we need to
function the next day.
Common Signs and Symptoms
of Sleep Apnea
• excessive daytime sleepiness
• irregular breathing during sleep (gasping, long
pauses, shallow breathing)
• high blood pressure
• poor memory and concentration
• snoring
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Diagnosis
Simple cases of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)
can be diagnosed with a home sleep study, which
requires the patient to wear a device in the
comfort of their own bed. These
devices measure airfl ow, blood
oxygen saturation, respiratory
eff ort, and heart rate, as well
as positional data (time
sleeping on your back,
side, or front), which
allows a specialist to
identify the presence
and severity of OSA.
These results are used
by your physician to
confi rm or rule out OSA
and identify a course of
action.
In some more complex
cases, a physician may request
a polysomnography study (PGS),
which is an overnight sleep study
performed in a sleep lab facility. A PGS involves the
measurement of brain activity as well as physical
observation from a trained sleep technologist, in
addition to the indicators included in the
home study.