Tuesday, December 15, 2009

An evening and a day at the sleep centre:MSLT


A typical night at the sleep centre involves two diagnostic studies and one cpap implementation study. This week my shift was slightly different with two cpap studies and a MSLT.

One of the cpap patients was an implementation.They had been diagnosed with severe OSA (AHI>30). They had never tried cpap previously, hence after a recap of what OSA is and how cpap manages this condition, we spent so time fitting masks to find the most appropriate one. The other cpap study was a review. They had been using an autoset machine for a month, had a mask they were happy with thus needed to have a titration study to confirm what pressure their cpap machine should be set to.

The third patient was having a MSLT the following day. They had previously had a diagnostic study which showed no significant OSA but they reported high levels of daytime sleepiness. The night prior to a MSLT a diagnostic study is required.

So what is a MSLT and why might it be required? It stands for multiple sleep latency tests and basically it measures how long it takes for a patient to fall asleep.

The following morning (after the diagnostic study) after breakfast and a period of recreation a series of 4 or 5 naps are scheduled. Each nap is around 20 minutes and during this time patients are asked to lie in bed and try to fall asleep. The sleep technologist will watch each nap via the computer screen and check if sleep has been achieved and if so has REM (rapid eye movement) occurred. At the end of 20 minutes if the patient is asleep they will be woken by the sleep technologist

Patients must have a drug screened urine sample on the day of the test and are asked to not have any products with caffeine on the day of the test or prior.

It is used as a way to assess excessive levels of sleepiness and as a diagnostic tool for narcolepsy.

Jessica





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