Posts Tagged ‘Polysomnograph’

Sleep Disorder Test Useful Fact

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Sleep Disorder Test Useful Fact

Sleep apnea is a condition which disrupts your rest while you are trying to sleep. There are several distinct types and while they are not normally life threatening the’re situations where it could cause serious health problems and expose you to life threatening hazards. This is why it’s essential to obtain a sleep apnea test if you believe that you could be losing rest from this trouble.

There are a number of ways that you can tell if you may be experiencing sleep apnea, and many unfortunate people suffer from other symptoms or conditions in which sleep problems chronic. For example ,fatigue, gaining weight, and mental tiredness all of which are aggravated by sleep apnea, and they will also have cotton mouth or waking up often with a panic attack.

You may also experience insomnia 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. A sleep apnea test is usually given at a center for sleep disorders but can be given in a doctor’s office where overnight facilities are available.

You’ll need to take a physical exam which is comprised of a physical check on your nose, throat and palate. To better understand your problem there will be of a series of questions regarding 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 test they commonly use to check your sleep health is a polysomnogram or PSG, which comes in two varieties. The first type of test is the overnight sleep test and is comprised of monitoring the following activities; breathing patterns, heart rate, blood oxygen level, eye movement and brain activity.

The second testing type involves a home monitoring version where a technician connects the electrodes and allows the patient to monitor their results at home through a polysomnograph. What the doctors are looking for in judging if the test is positive or negative is a factor called the RDI or respiratory disturbance index.

Numerical terms express the number of abnormal events which disrupted your breathing over the entire test. Following is the common measures used when deciding if someone has a sleep apnea issue. If the number of abnormal events in an hour is higher than twenty the doctor can diagnose the patient with a form of sleep disorder, possibly sleep apnea.

There are additional tests 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 those who fall straight into a deep sleep in under five minutes should get some intervention. A strip test can also be administered prior to the sleep apnea test to see of further testing is needed.