Sleep Apnoea can be broken down into three forms; obstructive, central and mixed:

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea

The airway becomes blocked during sleep and causes breathing to cease form 10 seconds up to 2 minutes. The subject partially wakes in order to reactivate the airway muscles and start breathing again. This can happen over 100 times a night and has massive health implications if left untreated.

Central Sleep Apnoea

The important difference to note is that there is no obstruction of the airway in central apnoea. Instead the respiratory control centre in the brain fails to signal the muscles involved in controlling breathing. Thus no breath occurs and once again the subject is forced to partially wake up to stimulate muscle activation and allow continuous breathing.

Mixed Sleep Apnoea

A combination of both obstructive and central apnoea.