Sleep Apnea or Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)
Sleep apnea is a condition where there are repeated episodes of complete or partial obstructions of the upper airway during sleep. The duration of this obstruction may last up to a minute and sometimes longer, and this can occur hundreds of times during the night. A distinguishing feature of sleep apnea is a persistent effort to breathe against the obstructed upper airway, accompanied by snoring.
Nearly 1 billion adults around the world experience sleep apnea and it’s estimated that about 5% of Australians have sleep apnoea. And this statistic is likely to increase due to the growing waistline of Australians. The most recent estimation in 2021, as part of the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study found that the prevalence of moderate to severe OSA in adults aged between 46 and 69 years of age, to be 58% (moderate) and 20% (severe) in men and 42% (moderate) and 10% (severe) in women (Cunningham et al. 2021).
Many risk factors for OSA are modifiable by making lifestyle changes. The most common ones being:
- Learning to breathe through your nose
- Losing weight
- Reducing sugar and alcohol intake
- Increase physical activity
- Stop smoking
If you’re experiencing some or many of these symptoms, it’s possible you have sleep apnea.
Aside from apneas themselves, symptoms that indicate OSA include:
- Waking unrefreshed
- Daytime sleepiness
- Tiredness and fatigue
- Limited ability to concentrate
- Irritability
- Sudden awakening, sometimes with a racing heart or feeling of breathlessness
- Dry mouth on waking
- Night sweats and frequent need to urinate
- Waking with a headache
- Impotence or erectile dysfunction in men
Book a Sleep Well Call to help you navigate what you are experiencing and whether an at-home sleep study test will be of benefit.
There is no need to problem-solve your sleep situation on your own.
Many people fear doing an overnight sleep study in a lab to determine if they have sleep apnea. Nowadays you can do an at-home sleep study with minimal wires that a sleep physician can review and provide you with the results.
Many people prefer at-home sleep studies for a number of reasons:
- Convenience of completing the study while sleeping in your own bed
- Freedom of movement with the at home sleep study appliance
- Go to the bathroom without assistance and impacting the study
- Can roll over in bed without impacting your sleep study
- Independent assessment and diagnosis
- FAST turnaround of results. Results can be available next day with a full doctors report within one week.
- No private health cover required
- No GP referral required (this is provided as part of the service)
- Sleep study reported by experienced Sleep Scientists and Sleep Physicians based in Australia
