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Wesper Journal
Subclinical sleep apnea represents the often-overlooked middle ground between benign snoring and clinically diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Though these patients may not meet the standard AHI ≥ 5 threshold, they frequently experience measurable physiological disruptions — including flow-limited breathing, mild oxygen desaturations, and fragmented sleep. These subtle patterns contribute to increased cardiovascular strain, metabolic dysregulation, and cognitive impairment long before overt disease appears. Traditional single-night polysomnography often misses these early deviations, leaving at-risk patients undiagnosed until symptoms or comorbidities worsen.
Advancements in medical-grade home sleep testing (HSAT) are changing that trajectory. By capturing true respiratory effort, oxygenation, and positional data across multiple nights in the patient’s natural environment, systems like Wesper’s allow clinicians to detect the earliest signs of airway instability and hypoxic burden. This longitudinal insight enables proactive intervention — through lifestyle changes, airway optimization, or targeted therapy — before OSA becomes entrenched. As Dr. Chelsie Rohrscheib, PhD, notes, medical-grade HSAT redefines the future of sleep medicine by shifting care from reactive diagnosis to preventive precision.
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Home Sleep Apnea Tests (HSATs) are rapidly emerging as a clinically validated alternative to traditional in-lab polysomnography (PSG), the long-standing gold standard for diagnosing sleep apnea. While PSG offers a comprehensive view of sleep physiology, its high cost, long wait times, and unnatural testing environment can limit accessibility and accuracy. HSATs overcome these barriers by allowing patients to test comfortably at home, often over multiple nights, capturing more representative sleep data and enabling seamless integration with remote patient care. Modern HSATs, particularly Type 2 and Type 3 devices, have demonstrated strong agreement with PSG in clinical studies and are now recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine for many patients.
Next-generation devices like Wesper Lab are pushing the field even further, using direct respiratory effort sensing and advanced signal analysis to achieve over 95% diagnostic accuracy compared to PSG. These systems not only improve patient comfort and adherence but also provide deeper clinical insight, including differentiation between obstructive and central events — a limitation of many indirect testing methods.
Key Takeaway: Home sleep testing is no longer a compromise — it’s a clinically robust, patient-friendly, and scalable solution that’s redefining how sleep apnea is diagnosed and managed.
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