NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There’s a new treatment for patients who suffer from sleep apnea, a serious condition that causes people to stop breathing while asleep.
It can strike anyone, but the most at-risk are older, overweight, and generally male.
CBS2 first reported about the battery powered nerve stimulator called Inspire when it was first approved. Now, a new study finds that it reduces sleep apnea in two-thirds of patients using it.
Patients like Peggy Siravo.
“I wasn’t breathing,” she recalls, telling CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez. “I wasn’t getting the correct amount of oxygen. My thought process was gone.”
Siravo says her memory got so bad, her family thought she had dementia. Exhausted, the 59-year-old could barely do her job as a nurse.
“I knew I was in trouble,” she said.