I suspected that my 80 year-old mother had sleep apnea based on her O2 sats (or specifically, her desats) from a pulse oximeter that she wore overnight, so I encouraged her to go in for an overnight sleep test to see if she has sleep apnea. She did, and it turns out her AHI is 24. She doesn't want to treat her moderate sleep apnea because she says that she sleeps fine and isn't reporting any excessive daytime sleepiness. She's also horrible at reporting her own symptoms correctly. However, she is reporting that she frequently gets a "wake up jolt". One even happened during her sleep study and when I went to pick her up from her appointment to drive her home she asked if all the wires could have delivered her an electric shock to cause the jolt. I asked the doc about it, and the doc showed us the video and said it was just an arousal after an apnea. The doc showed us the video and it really didn't really show much other than my mom waking up -- kinda wonder if they found the right "jolt" that my mother was referring to.
Anyways, I got a copy of her sleep study and am reviewing the report. One of the most concerning things that I'm wondering about is that her average apnea duration is 38 seconds, and her longest apnea is 84 seconds. I didn't see the report before the follow-up appointment with the sleep doc, so I'm wondering how problematic these apnea durations are. 84 seconds seems like a LONG time, but is it long enough to make somebody pass out in her sleep? Is that even possible?
The video they showed us of my mother's "jolt" wasn't the 84 second long apnea.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.