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When people seek out assistance from doctors or other sleep specialists regarding a problem with getting proper sleep at night, many times it will result in a sleep study being conducted. People who... |
When people seek out assistance from doctors or other sleep specialists regarding a problem with getting proper sleep at night, many times it will result in a sleep study being conducted. People who suffer from potentially rare sleeping disorders should be prepared to participate in more than one sleep study because rare sleep disorders may take a little more study and research to diagnose. Doctors are sometimes reluctant to deliver a diagnosis of a rare sleep disorder since these disorders do not commonly occur and can be difficult to treat sufficiently, but if a person indeed suffers from a rare sleep disorder it will become blatantly obvious after a battery of tests and studies. The important thing is to participate in the studies per the doctor’s requests so a proper diagnosis can be made.
Sleep studies vary in their complication and duration. A common first step in a sleep study for a rare sleep disorder is for the doctor to request a sleep diary. This means that the patient is asked to keep a detailed diary for a duration of around two weeks or so that chronicles patterns of sleep. With some rare sleep disorders this won’t do much good since people affected by the disorders don’t really remember any of the sleeping activities, but for other sleep disorders the sleep diary may prove to be quite effective in assisting the doctor to decide on a diagnosis. Doctors may ask significant others of the patients to keep sleep diaries too, and this way if there are instances of sleep walking, screaming, or other events that the patients don’t remember the significant other can shed some light on any patterns that may arise.
Sleep disorder clinics are equipped to study people while they are sleeping. A common tactic is to have the patients spend the night in the clinic, hooked up to various wires in an attempt to measure brain activity and other levels to see how they correspond to sleeping activity. While this tactic can be quite thorough, it may not prove to be very helpful in some instances when the activities are sporadic because they may not occur during the study. Without being able to witness the actual activities, doctors may not be able to deliver an accurate diagnosis. Since people sometimes sleep differently when they aren’t in their own beds, this can certainly be a consideration.
Some sleeping studies are conducted from the comfort of the patients own homes. Doctors may suggest utilizing video cameras or instead will loan the patients monitoring equipment. This may result in a more reliable reading since the patients are in a familiar and comfortable setting, but since the environment is not as controlled as a clinic there is still a margin of error.
Studies for rare sleep disorders can be quite costly, and sometimes are not covered fully by insurance companies. For many patients, however, the time and cost involved with a sleep study is worth it if it can result in some relief from a rare sleep disorder.