Chicago Tribune Reports on Sleep Disorders

The Chicago Tribune ran a piece yesterday with the headline:  Sleep Disorders: Some facilities try new home-style approach. There wasn’t much about home testing. It was more about how common sleep apnea is (TRUE) and how under-diagnosed it is (VERY TRUE)  and about how there are sleep labs opening up all over Chicago. 

The reporter, Robert Mitchum (rmitchum@tribune.com) brings up concerns that are shared by many sleep physicians, namely that hospitals and businessmen are opening sleep apnea mills.  Sleep Medicine just became a bonified sub-specialty in 2006 and the first official board exam, overseen by the American Board of Medical Specialities (www.abms.org), was given in 2007.  Until recently, any doctor could claim to be a sleep specialist.  It is important to go to a board-certified sleep specialist who treats all sleep disorders, not just sleep apnea, because people often have more than one problem with their sleep. It is also very important to go to a sleep center that is accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (www.aasmnet.org). If you go to their website, it is very easy to find an accredited center near you.

Now I know that I have a bias since I am a physician who owns and operates her own comprehensive sleep center, but I do feel strongly that this is the best way to do sleep medicine. When businessmen own the sleep lab and hire the doctor, you are not going to get the same level of care. The other week, a patient called my cell phone on a Saturday morning to say that his wife’s CPAP broke the night before and because she had one stroke already, she is afraid to sleep without it. I met them at my sleep center an hour later to give her a new CPAP. Only when a sleep center is being run like a doctor’s practice are you going to get that kind of service.

As for home sleep tests, I do some work with a company called Snap Diagnostics that provides a user-friendly, fairly reliable home sleep test that you pick up in a doctor’s office. Usually a sleep technician or nurse shows you in the office how to hook yourself to the few wires involved and then you bring the kit back the next day.

(CPAP is an acronym for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure and is the gold standard treatment for obstructive sleep apnea AKA OSA)