The physician or clinician will spend up to an hour with each patient, asking more specific questions about your sleep, and perform a physical examination. A report of your visit will be sent to your referring physician within a week. Your sleep, breathing, hearth rhythm and movements will be recorded for an entire night using a variety of devices attached to your head and body by a technician. The electrodes are needed in order to monitor your brain waves, eye movements, muscle tone, heart rhythm, breathing pattern, blood oxygen saturation, and leg movements. It looks uncomfortable, but is virtually painless.
Most patients sleep quite well with the equipment.
The sleep technician will explain the procedure, and watch your sleep all night on the computer as well as on a video monitor. Some patients will also require daytime testing to determine the severity of their daytime sleepiness. We will ask you to try to fall asleep at around 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, and 5pm. We will measure the speed with which you fall asleep and the kind of sleep you go into. The sleep latency is a good indicator of the degree of your excessive daytime sleepiness, and the kind of sleep you obtain will give us a clue as to weather you may have narcolepsy.