Posts Tagged ‘Quality Patterns’

Related Information About Sleep Apnea Testing

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Related Information About
Sleep Apnea Testing

A great many folks suffer from a condition called sleep apnea which causes a painful respite in respiration while you are sleeping. While sleep apnea comes in a great many varieties, these generally do not cause death but the’re situations where it may cause serious health problems and threaten your life. That is why it’s of the utmost importance to be provided with a sleep apnea test if you have a belief that you’re hurting from this sleep complaint.

There are several ways you can determine if you have a sleep apnea problem, and many who have sleep apnea also have a number of other symptoms in which sleep apnea is a side effect. For instance , 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.

You may experience insomnia along with your sleep disorder but the best means to determine if your symptoms are induced by sleep apnea is to spend some time to be tested for sleep apnea. This test is usually administered at a sleep disorder center but can also be administered at a hospital or doctor’s office where the appropriate facilities and equipment are available.

You’ll need to take a physical exam which is comprised of an examination of the throat, the nose, the uvula and the palate. There will also be a detailed recording a list of questions detailing the following subjects, sleep quality, patterns, disturbances and impressions. The next step is to have the patient stay overnight where a video record is made of how you slept.

The common test to record your sleep patterns is the PSG or polysomnogram, which comes in two varieties. The first type of test is carried out overnight and consists of monitoring several activities including your breathing, heart rate, level of oxygen in your blood and your brain level.

The second type covers a home monitoring version of the test where a technician connects the electrodes and allows the patient to monitor their results at home through a polysomnograph. The result that is being looked for in determining the results of the test is a common measure called the respiratory disturbance index of RDI.

This expresses in numerical terms the amount of unnatural hitches which may have disrupted your pattern of breathing through the night. Here is the list of values frequently used when diagnosing a patient with sleep apnea. If the total amount of interruptions over an hour is more than twenty the doctor can diagnose the patient with a form of sleep disorder, possibly sleep apnea.

There are some additional examinations which may also be requested including a multiple sleep latency test that figures out how poorly you are actually sleeping. Normally, a person requires more than 10 minutes to fall asleep so those who fall asleep in five minutes are considered good candidates for treatment. A strip test is also helpful to take prior to the sleep apnea test to determine if there are further tests needed.