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Sleep Apnea and Stroke

  • Stroke (HP Adams, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Clinical evidence has established that sleep apnea is a risk factor for stroke. Patients with stroke have a high prevalence of sleep apnea that may have preceded or developed as a result of the stroke. Well-established concurrent stroke risk factors for stroke like hypertension and atrial fibrillation respond favorably to the successful treatment of sleep apnea. The gold standard diagnosis of sleep apnea is obtained in the sleep laboratory, but unattended polysomnography is gaining acceptance. Positive airway pressure (PAP) (continuous positive airway pressure [CPAP] or bilevel positive airway pressure [BiPAP]) applications are the gold-standard treatment of sleep apnea. Suggestive evidence indicates that stroke occurrence or recurrence may be reduced with treatment of sleep apnea.

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Conflict of Interest

Antonio Culebras has received payments from Medlink for manuscript preparation and royalties from UptoDate and Cambridge University Press, has stock options in Clinical Stroke Research, and has received paid travel expenses from the World Congress of Neurology.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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  1. SUNY Upstate Medical University, 750 E. Adams St., Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    Antonio Culebras

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  1. Antonio Culebras
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Correspondence to Antonio Culebras.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Stroke

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Culebras, A. Sleep Apnea and Stroke. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 15, 503 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-014-0503-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-014-0503-3

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