What is it?
During polysomnography, or a sleep test, different body indicators are diagnosed over a period of 8 hours with the help of sensors placed on the body:
- electrical activity in the brain (phases of sleep and their alternation are assessed)
- breathing during sleep (mouth-nose, thorax- and stomach breathing)
- heart activity
- heart rate
- body’s oxygen supply
- presence and strength of snoring sound
- changes in posture and movement disorder (muscle tone)
Options?
Adult polysomnography, or sleep test, helps to diagnose:
- Sleep-related breathing disorders, such as sleep apnoea
- Sleep-related nightly behavioural disorders: sleep terror, sleepwalking, bed-wetting, movement disorder related to REM sleep
- Sleep-related spasm syndromes
- Sleep-related movement disorders, such as restless feet syndrome or periodic limbmovement disorder
- Sleep disorder causing excessive fatigue, such as narcolepsy
- Insomnia or sleeplessness related to mood swings, depression, eating disorders, etc.
- Shifts in sleep phases which could be caused by working shifts, taking too many naps, excessive fatigue.
- With a sleep test, it is possible to determine a link between a patient’s sleep disorder and different heart diseases, hypertension, previous inflammation of the heart muscle or stroke.
Children’s sleep test allows us to:
- Discern snoring from dangerous sleep-related breathing disorders (sleep apnoea, upper respiratory tract resistance syndrome, irritation caused by sleep-related breathing effort)
- Evaluate the level of severity of sleep-related breathing disorders
- Define the essence of a sleep-related breathing disorder if there is a discrepancy between symptoms and risk factors
- Assess the occurrence of a sleep-related breathing disorder in children with high risk (Down syndrome, face-jaw development disorders)
- Find children with a high sleep apnoea risk, who have a high probability for complications immediately after surgery and later during the post-operation period
- To diagnose sleep-related nightly behavioural disorders: sleep terror, sleepwalking, bed-wetting, and movement disorder related to REM sleep
- To diagnose sleep-related spasm syndromes
- To diagnose sleep-related movement disorders, such as restless feet syndrome or periodic limb movement disorder
- To diagnose sleep disorder causing excessive fatigue (e.g. narcolepsy, Kleine-Levin syndrome)
- To diagnose insomnia or sleeplessness related to mood swings, depression, eating disorders, etc.
- To diagnose shifts in sleep phases which could be caused by working shifts, taking too many naps, and excessive fatigue
