What is Home Sleep Apnea?
There are three types of sleep apnea with obstructive sleep apnea being the most common and where the throat muscles relax and cause an obstruction to breathing; periodically suffocating the sufferer during the night. There is also central sleep apnea where a failure for the body to send signals to the lung muscles occurs and typically attributed to neurological diseases. Finally, there is complex sleep apnea where there is a mixture of the above two causes.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea
The key symptoms of sleep apnea are;
* A dry mouth when the suffer wakes up.
* Loud snoring at night which may wake themselves or their partner up.
* Gasping for breath during sleeping.
* A strange headache in the morning that cannot be explained.
and challenges staying awake during the day after a solid 8 hours in the hay.
Challenges Diagnosing the Condition
Home sleep apnea is exceedingly difficult to diagnose, most people think that it is part of life at the onset. Some change their mattresses or sleeping practices, trying coca before bed yet consistently wake up tired. Some turn to alcohol to try and get some rest, but it just doesn’t work. During the day suffers go around half asleep and there have been cases where people have been hurt as a result of misjudgments attributed to it. If not observed by another person at night this condition can be difficult to diagnosed as any of the above could have a hundred different reasons.
Home Sleep Devices: Exceptionally Handy for Diagnosis and Monitoring
Diagnosis and monitoring of sleep apnea have been a major problem for the majority of suffers with some needing regular observation at specialist institutes. For most, this is a vexing ordeal for just the diagnosis alone. If it is treatable follow up appointments may be required to assess improvements. Luckily home apnea devises are available to purchase that mitigate the need to go for overnight observations.
Home sleep devices typically test for the following to give a complete assessment of the suffers symptoms;
* Different types of sleep are monitored, for instance REM to assess how long did the user actually sleep successfully.
* Home apnea devices also check body position; a person resting on their front may be restricting their own breathing even without sleep apnea.
* Snoring is assessed to aid investigation of the obstructive sleep apnea variant.
* Oxygen Desaturation Index (ODI) is assessed to see if the user is getting enough oxygen in their blood while sleeping.
* Apnea or Hypopnea Index (AHI) is calculated to aid assessment of ODI.
* Raspatory Disturbance Index (RDI) is calculated for assessment.
From this data the medical specialist is able to diagnose the challenge the patient is having and provide a suitable treatment without the extensive stays in specialist facilities mentioned above. The great thing about these devices are that most modern versions allow users to autogenerate reports from the device and send them directly to their GP or specialist, so it doesn’t interfere with their day.
Additionally, these devices are small and relatively cheap to purchase and typically in the form of wrist home sleep devices that are easy to wear and monitor your sleep throughout. They have low profile sensors that can move as you move while sleeping and instant results in the morning.
The most common form of sleep apnea is usually although not always caused by the following;
Obesity that puts unnecessary pressure on the throat, causing the obstruction.
People that have larger necks and additionally smaller diameter throats can have challenges with obstructive sleep apnea.
Smoking and alcohol usage inflaming the throat.
Tonsillitis or other sickness that causes inflammation.
By monitoring sleep in relation to these potential causes a sufferer of sleep apnea can find out quickly what the cause is and monitor process of treatments, making these home apnea devices a very useful investment for suffers.
