Sleep Apnea Test
Sleep apnea is a complaint which interrupts your rest while you are trying to sleep. There are various distinct kinds and while they’re not usually life threatening the’re circumstances where it may cause severe health troubles and expose you to life threatening risks. This is why it is important to have a sleep apnea test if you have an inkling that you’re suffering from this sleep condition.
There are several ways you can determine if you are suffering from sleep apnea, and many unfortunate people suffer from other symptoms or conditions in which sleep problems chronic. Some good examples of this are , weight gain, fatigue, and mental depression all of which may be caused by sleep problems, and they also might have dry mouth or a sudden panic attack upon waking up.
You may also experience insomnia but the only way to know if your symptoms are being caused by sleep apnea or are perhaps the cause of your sleep apnea is to take a sleep apnea test. A sleep apnea test is usually given at a sleep disorder center but can also be administered at a hospital or doctor’s office where overnight facilities are available.
You’ll need to take a physical exam which is comprised of an examination of the throat, the nose, the uvula and the palate. To better understand your problem there will be a list of questions detailing the following subjects, sleep quality, patterns, disturbances and impressions. The very next step in the process is 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 is administered in to various forms. The first type of test is carried out overnight and consists of supervising various activities such as your breathing, heart rate, level of oxygen in your blood and your brain level.
The second way this can be tested is at home where a technician connects the electrodes and makes it easy to monitor the patient while they are at home using a PSG. What the doctors are looking for when deciding whether the results of the test are good or bad is a factor called the RDI or respiratory disturbance index.
This method expresses in data form the number of times you experience a negative breathing pattern which occurred in breathing over the course of the test. The following values are usually used when judging whether or not a person has sleep apnea. If the number of captured events over the period of an hour is more than twenty the doctor can diagnose the patient with a form of sleep disorder, possibly sleep apnea.
There are some additional examinations which could be called for like a multiple sleep latency examination which assesses the amount of fatigue which is caused by the lack of restful sleep. For a normal person, they need more than 10 minutes to fall asleep so those who fall asleep in five minutes are considered good candidates for treatment. A strip test is also helpful to take prior to the sleep apnea test to see of further testing is needed.