Marlo Thomas has said, “My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.”All philosophy aside, sleep study is one of the specialties at Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists.
The dictionary definition of sleep is “The natural state in which you are unconscious for a time and your body rests, especially for several hours at night.” In this, Part I of our article on Sleep, we will introduce polysomnography and apnea.
Poets as well as philosophers have extolled the restorative power of sleep, and if you have interrupted sleep patterns, bouts of insomnia or chronic fatigue, your doctor might recommend you to have “polysomnography” conducted. This simply means a “sleep study,” and the process is used to diagnose many possible sleep disorders.
While you are sleeping, your doctor’s gentle monitoring devices and instruments of polysomnography accomplish a number of crucial, non-invasive measurements.
We record your brain waves (EEG).
We measure the oxygen level in your blood.
We monitor your heart rate and breathing.
We watch your eye and leg movements. It is also important that we record your sleep patterns.
Click here for a description of a normal sleep pattern, which cycles NREM and REM brain waves about every 90 minutes of a 6-8 hour sleep period. We watch for abnormal periods of interruption in your sleep patterns.
If your patterns are interrupted, we might diagnose a number of possibilities, and that is why we are writing this article in two parts. One possibility that has been given a great deal of publicity lately is sleep apnea.
• Indications of Sleep Apnea: During the sleep study, we note that your breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep.
• There are three main types of sleep apnea, which is literally defined as “a sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep.”
1. The most common type is obstructive sleep apnea, (OSA), which “occurs when your throat muscles intermittently relax and block your airway during sleep.” This type of apnea is often manifested in a volume of snoring that can drive a spouse into another room for sleep.Treatment might be as simple as a device to retain your open airway, or a mouthpiece to thrust your jaw forward during sleep.
Sometimes surgery is needed to change “the structure of the nose, mouth or throat”. We invite you to click here for more information.
2. Far less common is Central Sleep Apnea. Only 5 per cent of the cases diagnosed are this type. Lung doctors diagnose this if your brain doesn’t send correct signals to the muscles that control your breathing. This is very different than the above obstructive type in which you have an upper airway obstruction. “Central sleep apnea may be a symptom of other serious conditions, such as heart failure and stroke.”To begin treatment for central sleep apnea, doctors would first address the predisposing conditions. Then doctors might recommend a device to assist breathing or supplemental oxygen.
3. A third type of apnea would be a combination of these two.
For some advanced reading on recent sleep apnea studies, we recommend a recent article linking the effects of obstructive Sleep Apnea to damage in the cerebral blood vessels
Next week, in part 2 of our Sandman’s Guide to Sleep, we will bring you more conditions which might be identified in a sleep study, as well as instructions on “How To Get A Good Night’s Sleep.” Meanwhile, the Florida Lung Doctors encourage you to see your doctor if you suspect you have sleep apnea. As always, we sincerely thank you for reading our blog, and we wish you sweet dreams!
