OSA

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Anchor lead: If you’ve been told you snore, following up with your physician is likely a good idea, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, most often is identified when someone is told they snore. Robin Yang, a surgeon who specializes in the condition at Johns Hopkins, says OSA isn’t just a nuisance for bed partners.

Yang: (Robin) The condition gets worse in the sense that it would affect other organ systems such as your heart, blood flow to your brain, as well as just generalized productivity during the day. It is incumbent upon you to get that evaluated as soon as possible to get the proper diagnosis as well as testing.  :17

Such a diagnosis should include a sleep study, Yang says.

Yang: We do recommend that a formal sleep study, which is an in-house laboratory study where they bring you in overnight, you actually sleep in the lab, and they hook you up to monitors that test your brain waves as well as your heart rate and your oxygen saturation, as the gold standard of diagnosis.  :17

Yang says several management and treatment options exist, so getting the diagnosis right is key. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.