Diagnosis and therapy of sleep apnea

The presenting symptom complex, diagnostic features, and therapeutic alternatives for obstructive and central sleep apnea are discussed in relation to two illustrative patients. Heavy snoring and restlessness during sleep in an obese individual, usually a male, may indicate obstructive apnea. Daytime hypersomnolence, intellectual deterioration, mental depression, impotence, cardiac arrhythmias, cor pulmonale, systemic hypertension, and erythrocytosis are the most common complications. Tracheostomy, the classic form of therapy, can be replaced by pharmacologic intervention in most patients. The clinical presentation of central apnea is less dramatic, but neurological and cardiac complications can occur. Therapy is less well established for this entity. Knowledge of the increased incidence of these disorders and awareness of more subtle complications indicate that sleep apnea should be placed in the differential diagnosis of pulmonary and systemic hypertension, hypersomnolence states, mental deterioration, psychiatric illness, and even insomnia.