The word apnea comes from the Greek and means without breath.  Apnea always is characterized in one of three ways.  Obstructive apnea is the most common, central apnea and mixed apnea are the other two.  In each type of apnea, people who are victims of the condition will cease breathing repeatedly during the sleep period.  This may happen dozens, or even hundreds of times during the night, and will often last for a minute, or sometimes even for longer periods.  When this occurs, the normal sleep pattern is disturbed, so that the person is unable to obtain the needed REM sleep and often will be unable to reach the deeper sleep delta wave rhythms in the brain waves.

 

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea or OSA is a physical condition caused by an obstruction in the airway itself.  It usually occurs when the soft tissue located at the back of the throat softens, loses muscle tone and actually collapses during sleep, closing the passageway.

 

Central Sleep Apnea

In central sleep apnea, the airway remains open, it is not obstructed, the there is a failure by the brain to send a signal to the muscles to breathe.

 

Mixed Apnea

As would be expected by the name, mixed apnea combines characteristics of the other two conditions.  There is an obstruction of the airway, and the brain doesn't always signal the muscles to breathe.

 

For people with sleep apnea, each episode briefly arouses the sufferers so they will resume breathing, and so the sleep is not deep.  It is usually deeply fragmented and has only very poor quality at best. 

Sleep apnea, surprisingly is far more common than most people realize.  It's as common as adult diabetes, and according the the National Institute of Health affects more than twelve million Americans. Risk factors include being on the high side of age forty, carrying excess weight and being male. Sleep apnea can happen to anyone, even young children.  There is an amazing lack of awareness by health care professionals, so that the vast majority of people who have sleep apnea  are undiagnosed.  This is in spite of the fact that this disorder has substantial and possibly life threatening consequences. Because so many cases are undiagnosed, it stands to reason that it will also be untreated. Lack of treatment means that can result in cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, headaches, impotency, weight gain, and memory problems. 

It is believed that untreated sleep apnea may be caused of job impairment.  Untreated sleep apnea can worsen  and quickly.  Sleep apnea is believed to be the cause of poor job performance and for many motor vehicle crashes.  Fortunately study of sleep apnea with those who are interested is proceeding rapidly and there are now several courses of treatment which are commonly used.

 

 Fortunately, sleep apnea can be diagnosed and treated. Several treatment options exist, and research into additional options continues. Currently the most common and still effective results.  As more is understood about the nature and quality of sleep such episodes, it is possible that the further development will be even highest quality of all these.  Much will depend on the nature of these.

Because the causes of apnea are different as you go from site to site, so the treatment can be substantially different from one sufferer to the next.  Different causes forf the underlying apnea will result in different treatments.