What Are We Doing With Mild Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea constitutes the lion's share of the diagnoses sleep clinicians see in their clinics. One of the most misunderstood and poorly managed conditions I see is mild sleep apnea, or individuals who generally have 5-15 breathing problems/hour. In this episode we will:

• start with the basics of sleep apnea: What is it?
• understand the difference between obstructive and central apnea
• define what constitutes and apnea (or hypopnea) and how those tallies are utilized to arrive at not only a diagnosis, but a severity designation for the condition
• look at the literature and why some experts advocate treating mild sleep apnea and while other do not
• understand how patients can sometimes get caught in a situation where they are aggressively treating a mild condition in which the benefits may be few or nonexistent.
• begin a much larger dialogue aimed at understanding the nuances of sleep apnea, a very common sleep disorder.

Produced by: Maeve Winter

More

• Twitter: @drchriswinter
• IG: @drchriwinter
• Threads: @drchriswinter
• Bluesky: @drchriswinter
• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!