Sleep Apnea Testing Useful Information
A familiar sleep condition is known as sleep apnea which interrupts your rest while you are attempting to sleep. There are various different kinds and while they are not usually life endangering the’re situations where it might cause serious health problems and expose you to life threatening risks. This is why it is important to obtain a sleep apnea test if you think that you could be missing rest from this problem.
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 ,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.
Insomnia may be a part of your sleep disorder but the best means to determine if your symptoms are induced by sleep apnea is to take a sleep apnea test. A sleep apnea test is usually given at a sleep center but can also be done at hospitals and clinics that have overnight facilities and diagnostic equipment.
You’ll need to take 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 your sleep quality, sleep patterns and feelings about how well you are sleeping. The doctors will want to have you sleep with them overnight where a recording is done.
The most common recording test used during this process is a polysomnogram or PSG, which can be given via two methods. The first type of test is carried out overnight and consists of supervising various activities such as your heart rate, your breathing pattern, your eye movement and also your brain activity.
The second testing type involves a home monitoring version where a skilled technician attaches the proper electrodes and allows the patient to monitor their results at home through a polysomnograph. What the doctors are looking for in determining the results of the test is a common measure called the respiratory disturbance index of RDI.
Numerical terms express the number of abnormal events which disrupted your breathing over the entire test. Following is the common measures used when diagnosing a patient with sleep apnea. If the number of captured events over the period of 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 may also be requested including a multiple sleep latency test that figures out how poorly you are actually sleeping. A normal person requires, on average, around 10 minutes to begin to fall asleep so individuals who can fall asleep in less than five minutes are usually recommended for treatment. A strip test can also be administered in front of the sleep apnea exam in order to determine if there are further tests needed.
March 22 2009 05:36 am | Health