Professor Esther Rodriguez Villegas
Professor Esther Rodriguez Villegas on diagnostic pathways, reimbursement, and home testing in sleep apnea care

In everyday clinical practice, symptoms usually appear long before a diagnosis is made. One patient presents with resistant hypertension. Another reports persistent, unrelenting fatigue. A third struggles with attention and concentration at school or work. These cases move routinely through primary care, cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, and paediatrics. Yet sleep is rarely placed at the centre of the diagnostic process, even when the pattern of symptoms points strongly in that direction.
As a result, care often focuses on managing downstream effects while the underlying cause goes unrecognised and untested.