Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Some common symptoms associated with sleep apnea are snoring (mouth breathing for children), excessive daytime sleepiness (hyperactivity for children) as well as attention, concentration and memory problems. Obstructive sleep apnea is often misdiagnosed as an attention problem and left to itself without treatment intervention, can have severe and lasting effects on those affected. Severe sleep apnea predisposes an infant or toddler to autism or Asperger’s syndrome. Executive reasoning or brain processing deficits are commonly seen when severe apnea is undiagnosed and untreated in infants and young children. In adults, sleep apnea can increase symptoms of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and heart attack; be predisposed to weight gain due to insulin resistance as a risk factor for diabetes as well as insomnia, sleep deprivation, impotence and pulmonary hypertension. Incidence is highest at middle age and more common in men. A random sampling identified nine percent of women ages 30 to 60 years and 24 percent of men suffer from sleep disordered breathing problems.

At United Psychological Services we can:

• Provide neuropsychological evaluation to identify symptoms that may be related to sleep apnea and/or contributing to the development of some other disorder.
  
  
• Work with the medical field to identify symptoms related to sleep apnea, a treatment plan and additional issues caused by sleep disordered respiratory events over time.
  
  
• Increase the therapeutic use of a prescribed CPAP by creatively addressing specific problematic factors through knowledge about sleep.
  
  
• Address insomnia using a behavioral treatment program that often accompanies the initial use of CPAP.
  
  
• Offer a full explanation of the overnight sleep study from a behavioral perspective, sleep stages, quality of sleep and arousals for treatment intervention and to improve sleep continuity.