Obstructive Sleep Apnea     Wake Up to the Effects of
Obstructive Sleep Apnea  Obstructive sleep apnea is a condition
that can lead to serious health problems if undetected. It
causes the soft tissue in the rear of the throat to narrow and
repeatedly close during sleep. The brain responds to each of
these “apnea events” by waking the person in order to resume
breathing. Since apnea events can happen hundreds of times per
night, sleep becomes broken and ineffective. An estimated 18
million Americans are thought to have clinically significant
obstructive sleep apnea and, even more alarming, about 16
million of those people remain undiagnosed.  If undiagnosed,
sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure, cardiac disease,
impotency, behavior and thinking problems, and may be
responsible for many job-related injuries. It’s estimated that
people with sleep apnea are 10 times more likely to die in a car
accident than someone without sleep apnea. The resources in this
section will provide you with details about obstruc