Sleep. It sounds easy, right? Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, more than a quarter of the U.S. population suffers from some kind of sleep disorder. The National Institutes of Health, meanwhile, estimates that between 12 and 18 million Americans are dealing with a potentially lethal affliction called “sleep apnea.”
“Apnea,” is a Greek word meaning “without breath” which is exactly what those who suffer from sleep apnea experience: They literally stop breathing as they sleep, even though they, themselves, are probably unaware of it. These episodes can be as brief as a few seconds or they can last much longer. The consequences can be dangerous and sometimes even fatal.
Just ask Don Magee. Magee is the cardiopulmonary manager at the Indian River Medical Center’s Sleep Disorder Center. Together with registered polysomographers, (sleep study technicians), Jenny Tracy and Beth Hammond, Magee administers upwards of 400 sleep study tests a year and while he is keenly aware of how serious un-treated sleep apnea can be, he is also quick to point out how rapidly the diagnostic tools have changed over the past few years and how much more patient-friendly the treatment of sleep apnea has become.
“Now we even have a take-home version of one sleep test,” he explained, though he admits it is not nearly as thorough as the ones administered in the Sleep Disorder Center.
Either way, the digital data from each test goes straight to IRMC’s Dr. Michelle Maholtz. Board certified in both pulmonology and sleep medicine, Mahlotz is the sleep center’s medical director. She reviews and analyzes the data on each case.
Her analysis is the key.
Sleep apnea is essentially a two-pronged attack on its victim whose only obvious symptoms may be snoring, waking up with a headache or a tendency to doze off during the day.
Whether the apnea is caused by an actual, physical blockage of a patient’s airways, (obstructive sleep apnea), or by the brain failing to signal the appropriate muscles needed to breathe, (central sleep apnea), or a combination of the two, the effects are the same. In either case, the first prong of sleep apnea’s attack is that those afflicted with the disorder experience an unhealthy drop of blood oxygen levels as they sleep. This loss of blood oxygen can damage the heart, the lungs, the brain and the rest of the body.
The second prong of sleep apnea’s attack is an assault on what Stanford University’s medical center calls “healthy sleep architecture.”
Essentially, sleep apnea disrupts the normal cycle between rapid eye movement sleep and non-rapid eye movement sleep and the consequences from that can be severe.
Without a healthy sleep architecture, depression, memory loss or confusion, sexual dysfunction, high blood pressure, weight gain, stroke and even auto accidents resulting from sudden drowsiness have all been linked to sleep apnea. In a paper published this past June in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care, Toronto-based researchers have also linked sleep apnea to an increased risk for developing diabetes.
In their study of more than 8,600 patients, according to lead researcher Dr. Tetyana Kendzerska, “patients with severe sleep apnea had a 30 percent higher rate of developing diabetes than those without sleep apnea.”
Worse, sleep apnea is a progressive condition. It will not “go away on its own.” It is, in fact, treatable but it is not curable.
Fortunately, the diagnosis process is simple, painless and maybe even comfortable.
Tucked along a corridor at IRMC are two-bedroom-style sleep labs. Each room is equipped with a surprisingly comfortable queen-size bed. The rooms look like a high-end hotel, albeit a tad smaller. Patients check in around 8 p.m. for their overnight stay.
The most difficult part of the whole procedure is when the polysomographers come in and begin unraveling wires and start attaching them to various parts of the patient’s body through a combination of tape, Velcro straps and glue the consistency of toothpaste.
Those wires send digital data on blood oxygen levels, heart rate, leg movement, breathing patterns, body position, snoring and a host of other indicators to a computer monitoring station across the hall where technicians can keep a watchful eye on the patient via night vision TV cameras.
By 7 a.m., the test is done and the patient is free to leave. After about a week, a detailed digital file has been compiled and reviewed by Dr. Maholtz. Then treatment can begin.
The most commonly recommended treatment is the use of a Continuous Positive Air Pressure, or CPAP machine. The CPAP is essentially a pump that blows a steady stream of air into the patient’s nose by way of a facemask.
(Older CPAP machines, as Magee pointed out, sometimes proved too uncomfortable for many patients but newer models are equipped with far more sophisticated automatically variable air pressure pumps and much better masks.)
CPAPs may even have some extra, added bonuses for seniors. According to Professor Mary Marrell, the co-author of an August 26, 2014 study from Imperial College London, “Many patients (over 65) feel rejuvenated after using CPAP (therapy) because they’re able to sleep much better and it may even improve their brain function.”
Those who are concerned that they might be suffering from sleep apnea might want to talk with their physician or contact the IRMC’s Sleep Disorder Center at 772-563-4433.
