Diagnosing Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)

Sleep apnea often goes undiagnosed because sufferers are not aware of their heavy snoring and nocturnal arousals unless their partner points it out. However, some snorers have completely normal sleep — especially if it’s a rhythmic in-and-out snoring. It’s the loud, disruptive snoring punctuated by snorts or gasps for breath that signals sleep apnea.

The only way to diagnose OSA is through a sleep study. St. John’s Sleep Center has six comfortable specially equipped sleep rooms (with adjoining bathrooms) and staff trained to monitor patients throughout the night while they sleep.

Sleep Center Night Staff

Patients come in about an hour before their regular bedtime and prepare for bed the way they usually do at home. Electrodes are placed on the patient’s head to measure brain waves and legs to measure movements. Flexible belts are placed around the patient’s chest and abdomen to measure breathing patterns and oxygen levels. A clip is placed on the patient’s finger to monitor the level of oxygen in the blood and heart rate.

Once the patient is prepared, the room is darkened. A sleep technologist watches the patient via a camera and monitors the readings from the equipment throughout the night. The techs are trained to look for abnormalities in breathing, brain waves and movements.

Patients must sleep for at least two hours to obtain the necessary readings to diagnose OSA. If the patient has at least 15 abnormal respiratory events per hour, we wake them up to try a CPAP device.

A CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) device has a small mask that fits over the patient’s nose and blows pressurized filtered air into the patient’s airway to keep it open. While the patient sleeps wearing the CPAP mask, the tech adjusts the settings to determine the optimal level of air pressure to keep the airway open.

Sleep medicine specialists rotate reading the sleep tests. A report is generated and sent to the patient’s referring physician within a week of the test. 

St. John’s Sleep Center conducts studies on Sunday through Friday nights. For more information, call (217) 757-6ZZZ (6999).