People with severe sleep apnea may struggle for breath all through the night, not breathing for as long as ninety seconds at a time during their sleep. This syndrome, which affects at least four percent of men and two percent of women, can cause daytime fatigue, traffic and work accidents, deteriorating cognitive abilities, and cardiovascular problems. Yet until now there has been no accessible discussion of the history, physiology, and risk factors of sleep apnea. In this book Peretz Lavie, an expert in sleep research, tells the complete story of sleep apnea for the first time.
Peretz Lavie is Andre Ballard Professor of Biological Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. He was one of the founders and is currently a board member of Sleep HealthCenters, which is affiliated with the Brigham & Women’s and Beth Israel hospitals in Boston.