What is a Sleep Laboratory?
It is where all the data that can be collated regarding the patient’s sleep is recorded on to a computer to be examined later.  The patient is monitored throughout the night and recorded using a camera when sleeping in a special room set up at our hospital to resemble the home environment.

Sleep Laboratory Procedures
The patient’s brain electroencephalogram (EEG), eye movements electrooculography (EOG), jaw muscle tension electromyography (jaw EMG), sleeping position recordings, chest and stomach movements when breathing, blood oxygen levels, heart scintigraphy (EKG), and leg muscle tension electromyograph (leg EMG) are recorded.

These recordings are then examined to determine the patient’s sleep patterns. The phases of sleep are then determined. The breathing of the patient during sleeping is then evaluated and the presence of breathing anomalies (light breathing or no breathing) are determined, and the oxygen level changes, awake reactions, heart rhythm changes and leg movements are mapped and recorded.  All this data is re-entered into the computer and it is determined whether the patient has a sleep related disease and the seriousness of this disease based on the recordings made of the quality of sleep, the duration, the awake periods, the breathing, the timing of breathing, the positions in which the breathing changes, the phase in which it is more dominant, the blood oxygen levels at this stage, the relation between heart rhythm and sleep phases and abnormal breathing, and the presence of leg movements when sleeping.

Symptoms that must be evaluated at the Sleep Laboratory

• Snoring
• Stopping breathing when sleeping
• Sleeping during the day
• Sensation of drowning when sleeping
• Chest pain
• Heart arrhythmia at night
• Morning headaches
• Insufficient sleep
• Sleeplessness
• Reduced ability to make decisions
• Poormemory
• Dry mouth
• Sweating around the neck at night and the possibility of sleep apnoea
• Narcolepsy, which is where the individual falls asleep during the day at awkward times
• Tiredness during the day, irregular leg movements during sleeping which cause tiredness.

Additionally, the titration procedures of all diagnosed patients are conducted at our hospital.