You could be just one among the millions of people all across the globe who are suffering from a sleep disorder. Even more disturbing is the fact that majority of the persons suffering from sleep disorders are undiagnosed.

How can you be so sure that if you have a sleep disorder?

Here are some of the most commonly occurring health conditions and symptoms that you may be experiencing significant  as a typical sleep problem that requires urgent professional evaluation.

1.You have trouble going to sleep at night

While this is a common complaint among the normal population, if the problem persists it may signal the presence of a sleep disorder. Read the rest of this entry

The sound of any possible disturbance in the normal sllep during nights could be a very common symptom of sleep apnea.

The sleep apnea disorder has been established to be closely linked with excessive daytime sleepiness, heart disease, even strokes, now being diagnosed in a growing number of military veterans.

The veterans administration says about 20% of all vets suffer from sleep apnea and according to statistics released to The USA Today Newspaper, the number of vets receiving benefits to treat the sleep apnea disorder jumped 61 percent between 2008 and this year. Read the rest of this entry

Sleep experts are now working in the Midlands to fight back against disorders like sleep apnea, insomnia and narcolepsy that keep people up at night.

A new sleep center has now come up right here in Columbia is helping patients finally get a good night’s sleep.

Dr. Greg Cauthen says the earlier the better when it comes to identifying and treating sleep disorders. “Most people come to the center recognizing that they are sleepy during the day, they snore, and have trouble getting a good nights sleep.” He says sleep deprived patients can develop serious cardiovascular and neurological problems. Read the rest of this entry

One of the most common health disorders among people around the world is “sleep apnea”. In its simplest sense ‘sleep apnea’ can be understood as one or more pauses in normal breathing. In many cases the shallow breathing during sleep is also termed as ‘sleep apnea’.

A pause in normal breathing during sleep may have an undefined duration. Meaning thereby, the pause could be for a few seconds only or it can even stretch up to few minutes.

Similarly, the rate of occurrence of such pauses during sleep may also vary up to great ranges. It could be five times per hour or even up to 30 times an hour. Normal breathing generally starts immediately after such a pause but this re-start could generate a snoring or choking sound as well. Read the rest of this entry

Cardiac Concepts, Inc., a developer of medical devices to treat Heart Failure patients who experience breathing disturbances during sleep, announced today enrollment of the first European patients in a Pilot Clinical Trial.

The purpose of the Pilot Study is to understand the respiratory and cardiac benefits of the RespiCardia(TM) System when treating a breathing disorder known as Central Sleep Apnea (CSA) in Heart Failure patients. Prof. Piotr Ponikowski, Principal Investigator of the Pilot Clinical Trial at The Medical University/4th Military Hospital in Wroclaw, Poland, commented that the system was successfully implanted in 2 male patients, ages 57 and 68 years with ischemic cardiomyopathy and symptoms of moderate heart failure. Despite optimal medical management, both experienced severe sleep breathing disorders. The trial is a 40 patient study being conducted in a number of centers worldwide. Implants are expected to begin in the United States in the coming months. Read the rest of this entry

If you have the disorder, you’re not breathing properly while you sleep because your airflow is blocked repeatedly throughout the night. Nearly one in four men and one in ten women suffer from it. (There are a couple of other varieties, but OSA is the most common.) And it goes hand-in-hand with type 2 diabetes. In a survey on the subject, Gary D. Foster, PhD, wrote that, “among all of the sleep disorders, OSA has the strongest association with type 2 diabetes.”  That’s even taking into account other risk factors, such as weight, sex and age.

The main risk factor for OSA is obesity. “Excess weight deposits extra fat around the thorax, reducing chest compliance and functional capacity, while increasing oxygen demand,” wrote Foster, a professor of medicine and public health and the Director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. Read the rest of this entry

According to the latest research stud report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the air pollution could significantly elevate sleep related respiratory disorders.

According to researcher Diane Gold of the Harvard School of Public Health, air pollution can cause a “clinically significant” increase in symptoms such as shallow breathing and sleep apnea.

“You are at a 13% higher risk of having shallow breathing or stopping breathing for at least 10 seconds if pollution goes from the lower range to the higher range of pollution for that city,” Diane Gold stated.

Although this team of researchers has been successful in identifying a link between pollution and poor sleep quality but according to them causes for such links ae yet to be explored and known. “How much of the cardiac risk that can be explained by pollution, we don’t know yet,” she added. Read the rest of this entry

The Department of Veterans Affairs has recently observed that there is a sharp rise in reported cases of the breathing disorder sleep apnea. USA Today reported that over the last two years, the number of sleep apnea patients receiving disability benefits from the VA has risen 61 percent, at a cost of close to a half-billion dollars a year.

USA Today reported on the risk factors:

“More than 63,000 veterans receive benefits for sleep apnea, a disorder that causes a sleeping person to gasp for breath and awaken frequently. It is linked to problems ranging from daytime drowsiness to heart disease. The top risk factor for contracting the disorder appears to be obesity, though a sleep expert at the VA and a veteran’s advocacy organization cite troops’ exposure to dust and smoke in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq as contributing factors.

“More claims are likely to be made in the future as Baby Boomers age and get heavier, says Max Hirshkowitz, director of the Sleep Disorder Center at the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“Veterans are four times more likely than other Americans to suffer from sleep apnea, Hirshkowitz said. About 5% of Americans have the disorder, he said, compared with 20% of veterans.”

Baby boomers want to enjoy life, look good and feel good, even as they enter their senior years. With advances in dental technology and improvements in dental care, many folks are keeping their teeth. And for those who have lost them, there are viable options for regaining dental health.

Your dentures support your facial and throat muscles. If the muscles in the back of the mouth and throat relax, they can cause an obstruction. Throat muscles act as a flap over the trachea. This leads to episodes of obstructive sleep apnea, which prevents air from entering the lungs.

Sleep apnea can cause a host of problems, which I’ve detailed in past columns and will, no doubt, visit again. Suffice to say it can be a dangerous disorder. [Read in Complete ...   ]