How do sleep studies provide useful data when they’re taking you out of your normal routine to a strange place, bed, and hooked up to things?

Question

Wouldn’t you be basically guaranteed to sleep poorly?

I know just being in a hotel I wake up and flop around all night. Being observed and tested seems telling me that would just make it worse.

In: Biology

Answer 1

A bit of information first.

Ruling out Obstructive sleep apnea is 97%~ of the request I receive as a sleep study tech.

Obstructive sleep apnea or osa is when the muscles and soft tissues around your airway relaxes and the tongue loses support dropping down, blocking the airway. This can happen from 0-125 times per hour. (worst I’ve personally seen.) Over 30 is considered severe. Sleeping on your back and your dreaming (R.E.M or rapid eye movement) sleep cycle are the worst for apnea.

Now with this information, during a sleep study as long as you fall asleep for a little bit, the data collected is able to show if the apnea is present or not. Some nights you might have 8 apnea per hours others 12 and sometimes 6. But we can determine that it was present, and worth while to treat, especially if symptoms are present. (Fatigue, high blood pressure, etc). If no apnea was seen during the exam and there was no sleeping on the back and no r.e.m sleep, that might become a inconclusive study. (It’s also ok if it happens, 0 stress on this if you have a study coming up.)

Now insomnia, difficulty to fall asleep is another main concern of alot of the patients I see. The test keep track of the time you spend in each sleep stages, how long it takes you to fall asleep and your sleep efficiency during the study. But you’re not at home, this can vary so much. We don’t have any real values to quantify insomnia. It’s usually more of a psychological side. Stress, anxiety, sleeping habits. Keeping your biological clock (circadian rhythm) steady.

TLDR : first we look at physical issues, that we can measure with wires, which require any kind of sleep (2hours is our lab’s minimum). Then if nothing is found doctors can start to look at other things. The purpose of the sleep study is to rules out the bigger possible issues first.

Also like everything else in the medical world, everyone is different and should be looked at based on their needs.

Hope this helps. 🙂 Questions are always welcomed.