Women and Sleep Apnea - Sleep Apnea Squad Ep. 9

If you think of sleep apnea as a condition that only affects men, you’re not alone. Women are still going undiagnosed too frequently owing to a lack of awareness about sleep apnea in women and screening designed with the needs of men in mind.

About our Guests:

Sabrina GlozerisSabrina Glozeris is the founder and administrator of Ladies Night – Women’s Sleep Apnea and CPAP Support, a thriving Facebook group dedicated to helping women navigate the unique challenges of sleep apnea. By day, she brings her professional expertise to the world of health insurance claims, offering her a behind-the-scenes look at the healthcare system that many patients find daunting. Based in Omaha, Nebraska, she lives with her husband, Paul, and their beloved dog and cat. She is passionate about ensuring no woman has to face the sleep apnea journey alone.

Dr. Alison Kole is triple-board-certified in Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine.

Dr. Alison Kole is a Medical Director at Ognomy Sleep, a telemedicine platform, as well as an in-person sleep specialist at PatientFirstMD in New Jersey and the founding medical director of the Oak Health Concierge Sleep telemedicine program. She focuses on advancing evidence-based, patient-centered models of sleep care, drawing on more than two decades of clinical experience.

She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology at Barnard College, earned an MD/MPH from Tufts University School of Medicine, and pursued residency and fellowship training in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/UCLA. In addition to her clinical leadership, Dr. Kole is the creator and host of the Sleep Is My Waking Passion™ podcast and serves as Vice-Chair of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Advocacy Committee, with a professional mission to translate rigorous sleep science into scalable interventions that improve health, functioning, and quality of life.

Monica Mallampalli, PhD

Monica is the President and CEO of the Alliance of Sleep Apnea Partners (ASAP), the only leading patient-centered organization serving people living with sleep apnea. Dr. Mallampalli brings a unique perspective to the sleep apnea community as an OSA patient, a trained biomedical scientist and a policy advocate. Experiencing treatment challenges after her OSA diagnosis a decade ago led her to her current role at ASAP, advocating for people living with sleep apnea. Prior to joining ASAP, Dr. Mallampalli advocated for the advancement of women’s health from a sex and gender perspective for over 15 years.

She earned her PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Utah and a Master’s in Biochemistry from Osmania University in India. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Cell Biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Afterward, Dr. Mallampalli worked at the National Institutes of Health as a Health Policy Analyst and as a Research Fellow before entering the nonprofit world.

Women and Sleep Apnea toolkit coming soon.

Project Sleep's Sleep Helpline: https://project-sleep.com/helpline/

Project Sleep’s Sleep Apnea Squad series invites listeners to dive deeper into specific topics relevant to living with Sleep Apnea. https://project-sleep.com/sleep-apnea-squad/