(CBS) -- A treatment is offering hope for millions of patients with sleep apnea, a disorder that causes people to stop breathing when they're asleep. An estimated 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, putting them at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke and memory loss. Patients who are older, overweight and male are generally most at-risk, reports CBS News correspondent David Begnaud.
"I wasn't breathin'. I wasn't getting the correct amount of oxygen. My thought process had gone," said Peggy Siravo. Her memory got so bad, her family thought she had dementia. Exhausted, the 59-year-old could barely do her job as a nurse – and she knew something wasn't right.
"I knew I was in trouble," Siravo said.
Siravo has severe obstructive sleep apnea, where her throat muscles relax, blocking her airway and disrupting her sleep. On average, she stops breathing 53 times an hour, that's nearly once every minute during a night's sleep. She said on a night, she could be up four hours and sleep two.
She did not find relief from the CPAP machine, a common treatment that delivers constant pressurized air. She even needed oxygen on top of that.
"And then that didn't work. That's when they introduced me to Inspire and saved my life," Siravo said.
"Inspire" is an FDA-approved pacemaker-like device implanted in the chest. It senses when breathing slows down and sends an electrical pulse to the tongue to stimulate it forward, keeping the airway open.
