THE NATION - News from May 17, 2009
Emmanuel Michael used to think that his unusual sleep patterns were nothing more than amusing quirks.
In college, he once woke up from a library snooze to find a note on his chest complaining about his loud snoring.
After he became a database programmer, Michael would eat lunch quickly so he could also take a half-hour nap during his break.
But when he read online about sleep disorders recently, Michael discovered that his snoring and daytime drowsiness might be a sign of sleep apnea -- a disorder that interrupts a sleeping person’s breathing, sometimes dozens of times a night -- and that his health might be at risk.
“The thing that was striking and really frightening was if you do have sleep apnea, you run the risk of higher possibility of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes,” said Michael, 29, of Chicago. “I’m not going to let my sleep be the thing that does me in.”
Young and otherwise healthy, Michael is among a growing number of people who are turning to doctors to solve their problems with sleep -- a surge fueled in part by economic woes that are stressing out an already sleep-deprived nation. But doctors say people also are becoming more aware of the relationship between adequate sleep and overall health, as medical studies uncover additional reasons to get a full night’s rest.
Sleep testing, called polysomnography, traditionally takes place in a hospital room, where a sleeping patient is videotaped while brain activity, heart rate, respiration and blood-oxygen levels are measured. In another room, a technician watches as many as 20 different channels of information, looking for interruptions in breathing, involuntary muscle movements and other symptoms.
But the equipment is often uncomfortable, with more than a dozen wires and sensors attached to a patient’s head, nose, chest and legs.
“Imagine coming to the hospital and trying to sleep normally with 16 different wires on your scalp and on your legs and arms,” said Dr. Michael Friedman, co-director of the Sleep Diagnostics Center in Chicago. “It was really an awful experience most people dreaded.”
So Friedman’s center offers tests in rooms at the Crowne Plaza, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital rented an entire floor of rooms and suites at the luxury Avenue Hotel.
“We wanted to better provide an environment more conducive to sleep,” said Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of Northwestern’s sleep center. “We were able to provide an experience that would be closer to their home.”
Soon the home itself may be the setting for many sleep tests. Several home-use devices designed to detect obstructive sleep apnea have been released, and in March Medicare and Medicaid approved reimbursement for treatment ordered in the home after a disorder is diagnosed.
Doctors say the home devices don’t measure nearly as many parameters as an in-lab test. But they acknowledge that the appeal of being tested in one’s own bed may help the many people suffering from undiagnosed apnea get needed treatment.
Michael was tested through a program at the University of Chicago’s new downtown clinic. Patients are diagnosed in the first half of the night, then fitted in the second half for a CPAP machine that keeps airways open during sleep. They are allowed to take the machine home in the morning.
After being recorded as having 40 breathing interruptions per hour -- a very high rate -- Michael went home with one of the machines. Three days later, he said, he was sleeping better than he had thought possible.
“It sheds light on the past 10 years of my life, why I was a little more lazy than usual,” he said. “It’s kind of a clean slate for me.”
--
