Screening for Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Adults

An association of extreme obesity with hypersomnolence was recognized in antiquity and described in the early 19th century in both medical texts and, most famously, in Dickens’ Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. However, not until the first polysomnographic recordings of sleep and respiration were made in the 1960s was it recognized that apneas resulting from intermittent obstruction of the upper airway during sleep, causing hypoxemia and cortical arousal, contributed to the excessive sleepiness in these so-called “Pickwickian” patients. The term “obstructive sleep apnea syndrome” was coined the following decade, and it was soon recognized that intermittent partial airway obstruction during sleep, resulting in reduced airflow (hypopnea) without apnea, could result in an identical clinical syndrome.

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Novembre 2022