Sleep studies help find the cause of troublesome sleep
If you think you might have a sleep disorder -- or know you have one and want to know how severe it is -- a sleep study might be in order.
Sleep studies assess how much and how well people sleep and can help lead to an accurate diagnosis.
First, though, a doctor needs to rule out other health issues through a thorough examination. Part of that would be evaluation of symptoms that you might be experiencing. Signs of a sleep disorder include heavy snoring, feeling tired most days of the week, having trouble falling or staying asleep or waking up too early and being unable to go back to sleep.
The use of sleep studies to diagnose sleep disorders is important because untreated sleep problems can increase the chances of such health problems as high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, as well as injuries caused by falls and car crashes, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Types of Sleep Studies
Problems such as sleep apnea, sleep-related seizure disorders and narcolepsy can be diagnosed using one or more of the various types of sleep studies, which include:
- Polysomnogram. This is an all-night sleep study.
- Multiple sleep latency test. Sometimes called a nap test, it measures daytime sleepiness.
- Maintenance of wakefulness test. This measures daytime alertness.
A sleep study can be conducted in a hospital or in an independent facility. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that people ask whether a sleep lab or sleep center is accredited by the
The all-night sleep study, or polysomnogram, is a non-invasive, pain-free procedure. A person would spend a night or two in a sleep facility. A wide range of biological functions are monitored and recorded while the person sleeps, including brain wave activity, eye movement, heart rhythm, breathing and muscle tone.
Depending on what a doctor has ordered, sleep study participants might receive therapy during the sleep study, such as medications, oxygen or continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP).
In the morning, data from the sleep study are tabulated by a sleep technologist and given to a physician to interpret. Together with information gathered during the physical exam, data from the sleep study should lead to a clearer diagnosis of a sleep disorder.
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