Home Sleep Monitors; diagnosis and monitoring of sleep apnea
Sleep apnea is not well known with people thinking that it involves having a nasal band put on you at night to stop you snoring, unfortunately it is highly dangerous to your health both directly and indirectly with over 80% of sufferers having no idea of the issues involved. There are two forms of sleep apnea with one involving the physical obstruction of the throat by the weight of relaxed muscles or fat in the neck, or caused by inflammation from smoking, drinking or infections. The other is related to intermittent signalling from degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s stopping breathing muscles from working. In addition to this some people, a minority suffer from both. Thankfully obstructive sleep apnea is the easiest to treat and assisted by home sleep monitors.
The main challenge with sleep apnea is that a sufferer becomes tired and confused over time due to lack of REM sleep due to excessive movement to free the obstruction during the night. This can lead to death or harm to the sufferer or other people.
Heart Disease and Sleep Apnea
To make matters worse there is a strong correlation between sleep apnea and heart disease which is often overlooked. At present medical teams are being trained to look out for signs of sleep apnea due to this correlation, because a person with sleep apnea is much more likely to require readmittance into hospital after being treated for heart disease related illnesses. Interestingly if diagnosed with sleep apnea patients can also be identified as being at risk of heart disease and treated before irreversible cardiovascular damage occurs.
To do this successfully insurance companies and healthcare providers are turning to sleep study monitors to assess sleep apnea for patients due to the scarcity of overnight observation facilities and sleep specialists, it is far cheaper for successful diagnosis, faster to investigate and provides far more data for assessment. A sleep study monitor provides a triple win between the patient, the insurer and the stretched healthcare.
Sleep apnea sufferers receive much lower oxygen content in the bloodstream, this can cause hypertension and a change in blood pH while reducing the nitric oxide formation at the cardiovascular cell wall. This all accelerates cardiovascular hardening, hypertension and associated heart disease. The cardiovascular system regulates plasma flow from the bloodstream to and from cells in the body. This reduction of elasticity not only makes it worse for cells to get oxygen, but also allows arterial furring to occur. This constricts and builds up lipids and blood cells; rapidly increasing the risk for a stroke to occur.
If caught early this hardening of the cardiovascular walls is reversible within a one-month timeframe, however after this time is irreversible and problematic to treat. A home sleep monitor can help assess sleep apnea and by proxy helps with assessing cardiovascular disease.
Why you need a home sleep monitor
Sleep apnea is extremely difficult to diagnose without use of a sleep study monitor. Symptoms include loud snoring, a gasping or choking during the night and over 80% of sleep apnea sufferers dismiss it as just a bad night. In addition, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases are also difficult to diagnose in time, however as there is a strong correlation between both issues, a sleep study monitor could save you costly medical treatments or your insurers. Being proactive with your health can save you from major surgeries or death so a home sleep monitor should be always near your bedside. They can be the size of a wrist watch and have auto generating report functionality that can send your general practitioner reports and provide easy to read information for your own interest. They monitor blood oxygen, body positions, REM sleep durations, breathing and snoring and gasping events giving the healthcare professional everything they need to monitor your condition.
