Sleep Apnea Vs. Snoring

Sleep Disordered Breathing: Apnea Vs. Snoring

Snoring and apnea fall under the umbrella diagnosis of Sleep Disordered Breathing. This is a spectrum of abnormal breathing patterns, and is not a situation in which one has it or doesn’t.

• On the one end of the spectrum of sleep disordered breathing is the baby who breathes quietly, making no noise.
• On the other end of the spectrum is the overly obese adult who snores horrifically, falls asleep at meetings and at the theater, and has profound sleep apnea.
• Each individual has a sleeping pattern which falls somewhere on a spectrum between these two extremes.
• Almost all individuals with apnea snore loudly, but conversely, not all individuals who snore necessarily have sleep apnea. A person’s snoring can be mild, moderate, or severe.
• If the snoring becomes more significant, the loud snorer can also have mild, moderate or severe apnea.

Is it easy to differentiate between snoring and sleep apnea?

• Apnea is differentiated from snoring, in that during snoring, one has noisy breathing, but no apnea spells.
• The sleeper is unaware of one’s own snoring, and is equally unaware of one’s own apnea.
• Bed partners can be awakened and bothered by the snoring partner, as well as by the snoring apneic patient.
• Studies have shown that physicians cannot accurately predict whether one has apnea during an office evaluation.
• A physician can have an index of concern that one might have apnea, and would recommend a sleep study to make a definitive diagnosis.
• The most accurate diagnostic option is a sleep study.

What is a Sleep Study and what will it tell me?

• A sleep study, or polysomnogram, is an overnight test to ascertain whether one has apnea or not.
• If one does have apnea, the study can quantify whether it is mild, moderate or severe.
• This is usually determined by the RDI (respiratory disturbance index).
• The RDI quantifies how many abnormal breathing events one has per hour.
• The longer each apnea episode, and the higher the number of apnea events per hour, the worse the degree of apnea is.