Jefferson County Health Center diagnoses, treats sleep disorders

Editor?s note: The monthly

To Your Heath column is a venue for Jefferson County Health Center to provide health information that will benefit The Fairfield Ledger?s readers. To suggest ideas for future articles or to obtain information, call Jefferson County Health Center community relations manager Ginny Hughes at 469-4198.

The Jefferson County Health Center has a fully equipped Sleep Lab. You may have seen our comfortable home like bedrooms in our television commercials. The Sleep Labs are designed to monitor and diagnose sleeping disorders. A very common sleeping disorder is called sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a breathing related disorder that causes serious health threats. Sleep apnea is a chronic condition that progressively gets worse over time. Apnea comes from a Greek word meaning ?want of breath.? There are three types of sleep apnea: obstructive, central, and mixed. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is by far the most common. OSA is a condition that occurs when a person regularly stops breathing (apnea) for 10 seconds or longer during sleep. It is usually caused by either the tongue or soft palate falling back against the back of the throat when the muscles in the neck and throat relax during sleep.

Estimates are that between 12 million and 20 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea to some degree. It is also estimated that about 5.4 million Americans went undiagnosed and about 6 percent of these people sought medical treatment in a hospital. Ninty-eight percent of those people required admission for one to two days. Not only does sleep apnea result in sleep deprivation, but it can also threaten your life. According to the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, roughly 38,000 cardiovascular deaths annually are in some way related to sleep apnea. The links include high blood pressure, stroke, and commonly related to congestive heart failure. Treatment for sleep apnea is necessary and usually successful.

There are many symptoms of sleep apnea and they are often noticed by sleep partners. The symptoms include: loud snoring, choking or gasping, sudden awakenings to restart breathing, waking up in a sweat, feeling tired or lethargic even after a night?s sleep, headaches, sore throat, dry mouth, memory loss, and short attention span. A sleep study is the only way to positively diagnose sleep apnea. The test is painless and performed overnight in our comfortably appointed bedrooms. If you have these symptoms consult your physician and describe your symptoms. Jefferson County Health Center provides a state of the art diagnostic sleep laboratory to diagnose and treat your condition.

Ryan Ford, MHA, is a registered respiratory therapist-neonatal pediatric specialist, and director of cardiopulmonary services at Jefferson County Health Center.