Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder related to breathing, and occurs when the patient suddenly wakes up from sleep due to a decrease in oxygen.
Sleep apnea is characterized by loud snoring and in the middle of snoring, the patient suddenly cannot breathe as if someone is choking. As a result of not being able to breathe, the patient immediately wakes up from his sleep. Frequent waking up can make people with sleep apnea become sleep deprived.
Because of the lack of sleep, the impact when carrying out activities during the day is lack of concentration, drowsiness, and microsleep while driving.
As is known, microsleep refers to taking a short nap at an inappropriate time and place. If this happens while driving, the consequences can be fatal. There have been many cases of people having traffic accidents due to microsleep.
Causes of Sleep Apnea
The most common cause of sleep apnea is an obstruction in the airway. This obstruction of the airway is most often caused by obesity or being overweight, problems with the shape of the chin or jaw, and a narrow oral cavity. In addition to the three problems above, sleep apnea can also be triggered by age factors and diseases suffered. For example, stroke, motor disorders, and other airway problems.
In order to find out whether there is a complaint of sleep apnea or not, the patient can do a sleep test or polysomnography. The patient will be fitted with a device to measure brain waves, breath flow, snoring sounds, and the ability of the chest and abdominal muscles to expand. This test is done at night time. The recording is done for a minimum of four hours or until the patient wakes up.
Who Can Experience Sleep Apnea?
Sleep apnea can be experienced by all ages, from babies to the elderly can experience sleep apnea. However, there are groups that are at higher risk of experiencing this problem, namely:
- Patients with hypertension or high blood pressure.
- Obese or overweight patients.
- Type two diabetes patients.
- Patients with heart blood vessel disorders.
Is Snoring the Same as Sleep Apnea?
Snoring is one of the clinical symptoms of sleep apnea, while sleep apnea is a disorder.
So sleep apnea is a disorder, with the main symptom being snoring. Why snore? Because there is a lack of oxygen during sleep and there is something blocking the airway in obstructive sleep apnea.
So, even though the patient is sleeping, he makes an extra effort to compensate for the lack of oxygen that occurs due to the blockage, which is what triggers the sound that we call snoring.
The article was created based on the Healthy Monday Liputan6 collaboration program with Dr. Daniel T. Suryadisastra, Sp.N, FIN, RPSGT (Neurology Specialist Doctor at EMC Alam Sutera Hospital).