When sleep is steady, all is steady

Established on August 24, 2014 by Dr. Michael Morgenstern, the mission of the American Sleep Apnea Society is to end the consequences of sleep apnea including poor health, car accidents and sleep related disasters.

Pubic health consequences

Poor health, like heart attacks and strokes that take place in the middle of the night and result from uncontrolled apnea. Car accidents like the bus driver in Michigan who fell asleep at the wheel in Date. Disasters like Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill which have been blamed on poor sleep or the Metro North Train Derailment whose driver was later found to have severe sleep apnea that was untreated. Most people probably are not aware of the fact that sleep apnea is ruining the health of millions of Americans. Indirectly, it has even greater consequences, affecting nearly every individual.

Undiagnosed apnea is commonly dangerous

Sleep apnea is very common.  About 20 million Americans have undiagnosed apnea contributing to excessive sleepiness. Their concentration and performance is severely affected — research shows their performance can deteriorate as much as people who are drunk. These individuals, who are at times more inhibited than alcoholics are the same people who are driving cars next to us in the morning. They include our bus drivers, train conductors, pilots and even those controlling our nuclear arsenals!

A sleep apnea association with another focus – disaster reduction.

We are a sleep apnea association that was started to help end the public health consequences of this disease. By also focusing on disaster reduction our sleep apnea association hopes to bring awareness about how sleep apnea affects us all. We hope to reduce the frequency of undiagnosed sleep apnea and the consequences it brings. Our sleep apnea association also hopes to bring up-to-date information to patients as well (see our blog) directly from sleep specialists. This will ensure that our content is true, complete and easily understood. Most of the articles will be written by Dr. Michael Morgenstern, our founder. Dr. Morgenstern is director of the Cedarhurst Sleep Center located in Long Island, New York. He is also a board certified Neurologist. With our focus on education as well as on disaster reduction we hope to contribute in a meaningful way to the dialogue and discussions related to sleep apnea, health policy and public health.