Sleep Medicine
Sleep Medicine
Are you getting the Zzzzz’s you need?
Sleep Specialties at Wise Regional may be able to help you answer that. We can help diagnose a wide variety of sleep disorders, helping you get the sleep you need to lead a healthy, productive life.
What is a Sleep Disorder
A sleep disorder is a medical reason that affects sleep patterns and can interfere with normal physical, mental and emotion functioning. Some of the more common sleep disorders are:
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Insomnia
- Characterized by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep
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Narcolepsy
- Causes overwhelming and severe daytime sleepiness that often occurs at inappropriate times and places
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Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS)
- A condition that produces intense, often irresistible urges to move the legs, usually when trying to sleep or a “tingling sensation” when a person lies down to sleep.
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Sleep Apnea
- Brief periods during sleep when a person stops breathing, often for up to a minute and can occur 20-30 times or more in an hour.
What are Sleep Studies?
Sleep studies are series of tests that watch what happens to your body during sleep, done to find out what is causing your sleep problems. Thru comprehensive sleep study tests, many body functions will be measured and recorded, including: Brain Waves, Heart Rate, Muscle Activity, Blood/Oxygen Levels and Breathing.
Where are Sleep Studies performed?
Studies are done in the Sleep Specialties Lab on the west campus of Wise Regional Health System. In the lab’s private, full-size rooms, patients are monitored overnight with sophisticated equipment. Each room is equipped with a queen-size bed and private bathroom/shower. This enables patients to rest comfortably in a quiet, relaxing environment, isolated from medical equipment and personnel. A sleep study technician operates and continuously monitors the equipment from an adjacent room.
Who is a Sleep Study candidate?
If you suffer from any of the following symptoms, you may have a sleep disorder that can be diagnosed and treated by Sleep Specialties:
- Loud, disruptive snoring
- Pauses in breathing during sleep
- Excessive daytime sleepiness
- Frequent kicking or jerking during sleep
- Waking frequently during the night
- Headache and/or fatigue in the mornings
- Sleep walking, sleep talking
- Nightmares
Individuals suffering from obesity, heart or respiratory diseases, depression, and muscular diseases may also be at an increased risk for experiencing sleep disorders.
Sleeping is a complex process and greatly influences our waking hours. Without enough sleep, a person’s ability to perform even the simplest of tasks declines dramatically. Each year sleep-related accidents cause death, injury, lost productivity and cost billions of dollars in health care and damaged property.
Living with a sleep disorder
Most sleep disorders are treatable. Treatment depends on the type and severity of your disorder and can include:
- Lifestyle modification – Including changing sleeping habits and diet and exercise changes
- Oral medications
- Breathing devices – Such as a CPAP, which delivers continuous air flow to the upper airway, keeping it open and making breathing easier
- Surgery – For patients with enlarged tonsils or a deviated septum
How do I get the results of my sleep study?
Following the sleep study, a detailed report with test interpretations and recommendations will be submitted to your physician. He/she will review your results with you. Consultation referrals for pulmonary, neurology or psychiatry are available upon request.
What are the risks of a sleep study?
It may feel odd to be hooked up to the sleep study equipment and your skin may be red or itchy from the electrodes, but you won’t have any pain from these tests and there are no other risks with sleep studies.