What is Sleep Apnea?

Snoring and sleep apnea are common problems that can affect your sleep, health and quality of life. It is estimated that up to 1,000,000 Australians are affected by Sleep Apnea. It is particularly common in patients with other conditions; 58% of Diabetics, 77% of those who are Obese and 80% of people who suffer from Uncontrolled High Blood Pressure also may have Sleep Apnea.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea, if untreated can have serious long term health implications. It results in oxygen desaturation (a reduction in the oxygen level in the blood) and ican cause of High Blood Pressure and is associated with the following conditions and symptoms:

  • Excessive daytime sleepiness
  • Poor concentration & memory
  • Increased risk of car accidents
  • Depression
  • Diabetes
  • Impotence
  • Nighttime urination (Nocturia)


The good news is that the most common type of Sleep Apnea ( OSA) once diagnosed can be effectivly treated .

There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed.

  • Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
    The most common type of sleep apnea. It occurs when your upper airway closes but your efforts to breathe continue. The primary causes of upper airway obstruction are lack of muscle tone during sleep, excess tissue in the upper airway, and anatomical abnormalities in the upper airway and jaw.
  • Central Sleep Apnea (CSA)
    This affects only 5-10% of the sleep apnea population. It occurs when your breathing stops but your airway is open. This cessation of breathing results from the body's failure to breathe automatically. It's as if a short circuit prevented the brain from keeping the respiratory system functioning properly.
  • Mixed Apnea
    A mixture of both OSA and CSA.

Oxygen desaturation, snoring and sleep apnea often occur together, caused by changes in your upper airway while you sleep. Your airway may narrow, limiting airflow as you breathe; it may vibrate, commonly heard as snoring; or it may collapse, so you stop breathing.

This third type of change is called Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), and may last for ten seconds or more.

Your airway may even move through all three stages:

Healthy upper airway


Obstructed upper airway

When tissues obstruct the upper airway completely, they prevent breathing. They actually work to suffocate the sleeper. The sleeper wakes up enough to regain control of the upper airway, breathe again, and then fall back to sleep. This happens from dozens to hundreds of times per night for people with OSA, but they usually don't remember waking up.


Partially obstructed upper airway

Each obstruction deprives the body of oxygen and forces it to retain carbon dioxide that it would normally exhale. As a result, the body's blood gases get out of balance, and the body is subjected to a 'toxic' environment. When the body sets off 'alarms' that it needs more oxygen, the brain wakes the sleeper, breathing resumes, and the individual falls back to sleep until the next obstruction occurs.

These obstructions increase heart rate, raise blood pressure, and eventually blunt the body's automatic response system, resulting in increasingly more severe apneas and hypopneas.

The brief wake-ups that people with OSA experience also diminish their quality of sleep, resulting in sleep deprivation.