Sleep Apnea patients utilize a pulse oximeter to monitor their breathing during sleep

Sleep apnea is a very common health condition that affects millions of Americans. What sleep apnea essentially is that an individual stops breathing for a certain period of time while they are sleeping. Although its only a pause in breathing this in fact can have some serious affects on the health and wellness of individuals who have apnea. One of the first affects that apnea has on individuals is the fact that those individuals with the condition find themselves very tired the next day. The reason for this is the fact that they actually have not gotten enough oxygen and thus have not slept in order to be energetic and active the next morning. One of the solutions for those individuals that have apnea is that they attend apnea clinics where they are closely monitored by special machines in order to record and monitor their health condition. A lot of times these centers can provide treatment that either improves or even completely cures the apnea. However, a problem that exists is the fact that once the individual with sleep apnea leaves the apnea center they have no other device that they can utilize at home that will allow them to monitor their oxygen levels during sleep just as the devices do at the centers. There is now a device that offers this function and it is a portable pulse oximeter. A pulse oximeter is a medical and health device that measures the blood oxygen saturation or oxygen levels of individuals instantly and on a continuous basis. The way that a pulse oximeter relates to apnea is that an individual with sleep apnea can utlize a pulse oximeter when they go to sleep in their home and the device will measure their oxygen levels throughout the night. Advanced apnea pulse oximeters have the ability to measure the oxygen levels of the individual on a continuous basis while the patient sleeps safe and sound in their own home. The oximeter device will record the readings that it gets on the computer memory of the device and later the patient can take that date and upload it onto a computer for further analysis. The analysis will show exactly the oxygen levels of the individual throughout the night and will pinpoint specific points of sleep apnea and lack of oxygen. This is a very powerful tool for those with apnea because they no longer are constrained to have to sleep in apnea centers to have their oxygen levels monitored in their sleep. They simply utilize a portable pulse oximeter which is a small device that can be taken anywhere by the individual and is used to measure their oxygen levels while the patient sleeps throughout the night. Most pulse oximeters also have alarm functions that actually will sound an alarm should the oxygen levels fall below healthy levels and also will record this occurrence on its memory computer. The device is quite portably and can be taken wherever the individual desires to go.