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While snoring is often ignored by people as a normal sleeping habit, experts have warned that it could be a sign of serious health issues. According to health experts, snoring is the main cause of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and people must keep this medical condition in check. They have further called on the residents to monitor their sleeping patterns to prevent future health risks.
Dr Meenu Cherian, ENT Specialist, Thumbay University Hospital, explained that OSA is an under-diagnosed disorder that is commonly found in overweight people. The disorder is caused by repetitive collapse of the upper respiratory passage during sleep, resulting in partial or complete breathing obstruction. Dr Cherian further stated that the obstruction can take place at the level of nose, nasopharynx, Oropharynx, hypopharynx, mandible or neck.
"An affected person can be suffering from snoring, disturbed sleep with episodes of choking or gasping, daytime irritability, loss of concentration at work or school and morning fatigue due to excessive daytime sleepiness,” Dr Cherian added.
Dr Hardik Patel, specialist pulmonologist at Dubai's NMC Royal Hospital DIP, underlined that the word apnea comes from Greek word ‘apnos’ which means "the absence of breathing". It is associated with collapsing of the airways during sleep. It further leads to a snoring sound which is generated due to turbulent airflow through the narrowed airway.
Even as snoring is a very common phenomenon, it is often attributed to nasal obstruction by many experts. Due to lack of attention towards this disorder, it results in delayed diagnosis and potential risks to the patient's healthy quality of life.
“Continued respiratory effort and disturbed sleep lead to low oxygen levels in the blood. The prolonged obstruction could lead to pulmonary or systemic hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, congestive cardiac failure and other heart conditions like myocardial infarction etc,” Dr Cherian noted.
Experts added that memory loss, morning headaches, mood swings, and depression are some of the other conditions people can face due to OSA.
Case Study
Dr Patel highlighted a study of a 64-year-old female to explain the disorder. She reported severe headaches, especially in the mornings after waking up, along with daytime somnolence and an inability to focus on daily activities. In addition, she was a snorer and morbidly obese.
Later, the doctor found her oxygen saturation was only 80% on room air and she was already adapted to being hypoxemic. She was also experiencing a hypoxic respiratory drive which was allowing her to lead minimal functionality.
On treatment, the doctor gave her oxygen supplementation to expand saturation to 88 percent and not totally counteract her hypoxic respiratory drive.
"We did a polysomnography and found that the patient had an AHI of 55.2 which indicates severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea," the medico added,
The next day, a titration study was conducted to gain more information about the pressures that were required to be maintained, following which CPAP was prescribed to her.
Within the next two days, the patient recovered and was free of her symptoms. An overnight CPAP made the patient highly functional and enhanced the quality of life that she had been missing for several years, the doctor added.
How common is the disorder
Doctors advised weight loss with healthy diet and exercising can help in reducing the impact of the problem. However, they also recommend consulting a specialist to get a complete clinical examination and fibre-optic nasopharyngo-laryngoscopy done in order to check the anatomical level of sleep-related breathing abnormalities.
Dr Cherian recommended sleep study or nocturnal polysomnography to confirm the presence and severity of the obstruction. Furthermore, the study also helps in measuring the degree of hypoxemia, hypercapnia, inspiratory flow limitation and the number of arousal episodes.
“Site-specific surgical therapy (nasal/palatal/hypopharyngeal or base of tongue) or staged surgical management (if obstruction is at more than one anatomical level in the upper respiratory tract) may be needed with improvement in the condition,” he concluded.
SOURCE: Khaleej Times