These recommendations based on asymptomatic individuals highlight an important gap in sleep health awareness among both health care professionals and patients. Because the early symptoms of OSA tend to occur in sleep, when the person with the condition is less aware, there is a definite potential for underreporting. Hence, if the person with OSA is not fully aware of these symptoms it makes communicating them to their health care provider even harder. Gasping for air during the night, night...

Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome is a rare disorder due to a mutation in the PHOX2B gene, characterized by a failure in autonomic control of breathing with diminished or absent response to hypoxia and hypercapnia, which is most pronounced during sleep. Most patients present from birth with central apneas and hypoventilation, or later in the setting of a physiologic stress. Recent literature in mice with a Phox2b27Ala/+ mutation suggests a predisposition to obstructive apneas...

Many children with possible obstructive sleep apnea remain unidentified due to low referral rates and low PSG completion rates. However, few data have been published about reasons for this gap and ways to improve referral rates and study completion. One study 1 showed that only 5.9% of snoring children were referred by their primary care providers for PSG despite having received prompting of a positive screen through a computer decision support system. Of those referred, only 54% completed...