Doctors Answers (2)
Six to Seven hours of sleep plus an hour for preparation. Some sleep disorders require more than one sleep study to decide which treatment option is best. For example, if Obstructive Sleep Apnea is detected on the diagnostic study, the patient should return for a second study to determine the best therapy to manage this sleep disordered breathing. If narcolepsy is suspected, the patient may need to return for a daytime nap study to measure the severity of daytime sleepiness.
A sleep study (polysomnogram) usually takes a single night to perform, but more than one night may be necessary if one or more sleep disorders are discovered.
What is Sleep Study?
A sleep study, also known as a polysomnography, is a type of sleep test performed overnight at a sleep center. While a patient sleeps, his or her heart rate, brain activity, muscle movement, breathing patterns and other parameters are measured. Typically, the room in which a patient with a sleep study appointment will be monitored likes very much like a nice hotel room. Many times amenities such as a television, comfy chairs, bathroom, snacks and breakfast upon waking is featured with the room so that the patient being studied will be most at ease and able to sleep as well as possible. The results of an overnight sleep study, or a polysomnogram, can help doctors diagnose health conditions and sleep disorders in patients who think they may need treatment.
Sleep Disorders that Sleep Studies Can Help
Common sleep disorders diagnosed after a sleep study include insomnia, sleep apnea and narcolepsy. These conditions are more common than many people may believe. And with sleep study research, these thousands of patients can seek out the right form of treatment to help them battle sleep deprivation symptoms that they may have always thought was normal. The study of sleep through polysomnography or sleep study can also lead to more specific treatment for underlying causes of difficulty sleeping. In fact, sleep study research has made many links between sleep disorders and many mental disorders, such as clinical depression and schizophrenia. Undergoing an overnight sleep study and reaping the benefits of doctors whose expertise is the study of sleep can be a useful tool across many fields of medicine.
Overnight Sleep Study
For an overnight sleep study conducted by professional sleep technicians, a patient will typically be at the sleep center for 12 hours or more. Sleep study research can reveal much about a person's health and many times can lead to a diagnosis of a very treatable sleep disorder. However, sleep study research also takes a lot of time and patience, as a wealth of data is necessary to determine a person's natural and normal sleep patterns. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that a professional sleep study requires equipment only available at certified sleep centers, which is a place where patients do not necessarily feel comfortable or normal. For patients who absolutely cannot produce solid sleep study results, there are also at-home sleep study option available.
Sleep Studies at Home
Various reasons including distance between a sleep center and home, a busy work schedule, family commitments and disabilities prevents sleep study at a professional sleep center from being an option for some patients. For people who can't make a sleep study appointment, sleep study research can be collected in the comfort of your own bed with an at-home sleep study. Most at-home sleep study kits involve devices to measure breathing, blood oxygen, snoring and movement of the head and neck. Though the parameters monitored during an at-home sleep study are nowhere near as thorough as the data that can be collected using advanced sleep study equipment at a sleep center - sometimes patients have no other option. Contact your insurance company to see if your plan covers at-home sleep study kits.
