People with hypopnea due to airflow obstruction often have loud, heavy snoring that is interrupted with choking sounds or loud snorts followed by periods of silence, because not enough air can flow into the lungs through the mouth and nose. The periods of silence can last 20 seconds or longer and can happen many times each hour, resulting in poor sleep and reduced levels of oxygen in the blood. Other symptoms of hypopnea may include depression, forgetfulness, mood or behaviour changes, trouble concentrating, loss of energy, nervousness, and morning headaches. Not all people with hypopnea experience all of these symptoms and not everyone who has these symptoms has hypopnea. Consequences
Hypopnea is a disorder that may result in excessive daytime sleepiness and compromised quality of life, including traffic accidents, diminished productivity in the workplace, and emotional problems. Cardiovascular consequences of hypopnea may include myocardial infarction, hypertension, coronary heart disease as well other problems such as stroke, psychiatric problems, impotence, cognitive dysfunction and memory loss.
Occlusion would never be used in infants though both because of the risk of inducing stimulus deprivation amblyopia and because they do not experience diplopia.Other management options at this initial stage include the use of botulinum toxin, which is injected into the ipsilateral medial rectus (botulinum toxin therapy of strabismus). The use of BT serves a number of purposes. Firstly, it helps to prevent the contracture of the medial rectus which might result from its acting unopposed for a long period. Secondly, by reducing the size of the deviation temporarily it might allow prismatic correction to be used where this was not previously possible, and, thirdly, by removing the pull of the medial rectus it may serve to reveal whether the palsy is partial or complete by allowing any residual movement capability of the lateral rectus to operate. Thus, the toxin works both therapeutically, by helping to reduce symptoms and enhancing the prospects for fuller ocular movements post-operatively, and diagnostically, by helping to determine the type of operation most appropriate for each patient.A Cochrane Review on interventions for eye movement disorders due to acquired brain injury, last updated June 2017, identified one study of botulinum toxin for acute sixth nerve palsy. The Cochrane review authors judged this to be low-certainty evidence; the study was not masked and the estimate of effect was imprecise.