The treatment of epilepsy with vagus nerve stimulation can inadvertently cause obstructive and central sleep apnea (CSA). The mechanism for CSA seen in patients with a vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) is not fully known. We describe the case of a 13-year-old girl in whom VNS activation induced tachypnea and post-hyperventilation central apnea. Following adjustment of VNS settings, the post-hyperven...

Complex sleep apnea is the term used to describe a form of sleep disordered breathing in which repeated central apneas (>5/hour) persist or emerge when obstructive events are extinguished with positive airway pressure (PAP) and for which there is not a clear cause for the central apneas such as narcotics or systolic heart failure. The driving forces in the pathophysiology are felt to be ventila...

Sleep disturbance in patients with probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are frequent and disabling features, affecting approximately 25–60% of all patients. The most common sleep related complaints are insomnia, sleep fragmentation and excessive daytime sleepiness, frequently accompanied by sleep apnea in patients with probable AD.1 Change in sleep precedes the onset of cognitive symptoms in patie...

Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is highly prevalent in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI); the exact mechanism(s) or the predictors of disease are unknown. We hypothesized that patients with cervical SCI (C-SCI) are more susceptible to central apnea than patients with thoracic SCI (T-SCI) or able-bodied controls. Sixteen patients with chronic SCI, level T6 or above (8 C-SCI, 8 T-SCI; age 4...

PURPOSE Treatment-emergent central sleep apnea (TECSA), also called complex apnea, occurs in 5%-15% of sleep apnea patients during positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy, but the clinical predictors are not well understood. The goal of this study was to explore possible predictors in a clinical sleep laboratory cohort, which may highlight those at risk during clinical management. METHODS We r...

UNLABELLED Therapeutic decisions in patients with sleep apnea (eg, adjustment of continuous positive airway pressure [CPAP]) depend on differentiating central from obstructive apnea. Obstructive apnea is defined by cessation of airflow in the presence of continued respiratory effort, which is conventionally inferred from chest wall movement or intrathoracic pressure swings. Cardiogenic oscillat...

Ventricular ectopy1 and central sleep apnea2 are independent negative predictors of excess mortality in patients with heart failure. Recent studies have established an association between central sleep apnea and ventricular ectopy.3 Because the 2 conditions share many common risk factors, however, a causal relationship remains unclear. Here, we present images of a nocturnal polygraphy that prov...

Masticatory and tongue muscle activity was examined polysomnographically in 14 patients with sleep apnea syndrome and six snorers. The all-night polysomnographic recordings included electromyograms (EMG) of the genioglossal, the masseter and the inferior head of the lateral pterygoid muscles, nasal airflow and thoracoabdominal respiratory effort. The apneas were defined and classified into thre...

background and objective : obstructive sleep apnea (osa) syndrome is a kind of sleep-related disorder with complex features and may lead to daytime sleepiness. this study aimed to find the differences between smokers and non-smokers regarding the parameters of polysomnography. materials and methods : this was a cross-sectional study conducted on consecutive patients referred to a sleep lab to p...