Posts Tagged ‘Mental Depression’

Sleep Disorder Test

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Sleep Disorder Test

A great many folks suffer from a condition called sleep apnea which disrupts your rest while you’re in bed. There are various non threatening forms of sleep apnea but there are certain conditions where there might be serious health consequences and expose you to life threatening risks. it is of great relevance to obtain a sleep apnea test if you think that you could be putting up with this condition.

Several methods are available for determining if you may be experiencing sleep apnea, and many who have sleep apnea also have a number of other symptoms in which sleep apnea is a side effect. For example , weight gain, fatigue, and mental depression all of which may be caused by sleep problems, and they also might have dry mouth or a sudden panic attack upon waking up.

Insomnia may be a part of your sleep disorder but the only way to know if your symptoms are being caused by sleep apnea or are perhaps the cause of your sleep apnea is to take a sleep apnea test. This test is usually administered at a center for sleep disorders but can be given in a doctor’s office where overnight facilities are available.

The first thing to do is have a physical exam and part of the test consists of an examination of the throat, the nose, the uvula and the palate. There will also be a detailed recording an interview with questions showing the following subjects, sleep quality, patterns, disturbances and impressions. The next step is to have you sleep with them overnight where a record is kept of how well you sleep.

The common test to record your sleep patterns is a polysomnogram or PSG, which is administered in to various forms. The first type of test is the overnight sleep test and is comprised of supervising various activities such as your breathing, heart rate, level of oxygen in your blood and your brain level.

The second testing type involves a home monitoring version where a skilled technician attaches the proper electrodes and makes it easy to monitor the patient while they are at home using a PSG. What the doctors are looking for when deciding whether the results of the test are good or bad is a factor called the RDI or respiratory disturbance index.

This method expresses in data form the number of times you experience a negative breathing pattern which disrupted your breathing over the entire test. The following values are usually used when judging whether or not a person has sleep apnea. If the number of captured events over the period of an hour is over twenty in number the doctor can diagnose the patient with a form of sleep disorder, possibly sleep apnea.

There are some additional examinations which could be called for like a multiple sleep latency examination which assesses the amount of fatigue which is caused by the lack of restful sleep. Normally, a person requires roughly 10 minutes to fall into a restful sleep so individuals who can fall asleep in less than five minutes are usually recommended for treatment. A strip test can also be administered prior to the sleep apnea test to see of further testing is needed.