Differences Between the Forms of Sleep Apnea

Complex sleep apnea is where a patient will suffer from both central and obstructive sleep apnea. This usually occurs after the patient has already been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and been treated for it and the symptoms have disappeared. The problem with complex sleep apnea is that all along the patient has suffering both complex and obstructive apnea, but because obstructive is usually the most obvious, the symptoms of complex aren’t apparent until after the obstructive symptoms have been addressed.

The symptoms of complex sleep apnea are the same as obstructive and complex. The patient will wake multiple times per night when they stop breathing either due to a blockage of the airways or because the brain has failed to send signals to the breathing centre. With complex sleep apnea, the research has been divided on what the exact cause of these mixed episode apneas occur as no clear correlation between either narcotics nor heart failure has been positively identified. A large component of complex sleep apnea patients also have a genetic predisposition to the disorder.