None of these devices are painful and all are designed to be as comfortable as possible. The technical equipment and technicians will be in a room separate from the sleeping room and the electrode wires will be gathered together in a kind of ponytail so that rolling over and changing positions will be almost as easy as it would be at home. The sleep study and its analysis and interpretation are part of a complex process. The information is then interpreted by a sleep specialist with special knowledge of sleep and its disorders. Results may not be available immediately.
Sleep studies are useful for a number of purposes.
They are done on patients with a number of complaints, most commonly excessive daytime sleepiness. Most sleep centers find that the majority of sleep studies are done for possible sleep apnea. Sleep studies are often not done for patients with insomnia because little useful information is obtained if a patient can not fall asleep in the lab. A sleep specialist will help decide who should or should not have a sleep study. Researchers are constantly studying sleep to understand the underlying brain mechanisms and to understand normal versus abnormal sleep.