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Introduction: With a relentless focus on excellence in healthcare, Pullman Regional Hospital presents The Health Podcast.

Bill Klaproth: So there's many different types of sleep disturbances interfering with getting a good night's sleep, which quite frankly is necessary and vital for optimal health and living a quality of life. So when you have sleep issues, it's common to undergo a sleep study. So what is a sleep study and how does it work? Well, let's find out what Dr. Vinod Mehta, Pulmonologist and Board-Certified Sleep Medicine Physician at Palouse Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine, part of the Pullman Regional Hospital Clinic Network. Dr. Mehta, thank you so much for your time. So first off, what is a sleep study? What are they used for?

Dr. Mehta: So sleep study is a diagnostic study done in the laboratory and when it would be sleeping that overnight at the sleep lab, and we hook up different wires on the body looking for electrical activities in the brain, in the area of the muscles in your neck and the chest and the abdomen. And also we are looking at nasal air flow, as well as the cardiogram to look for cardiac rhythm. We also check your pulse, as well as your oxygen saturation. We also monitor leg movements and muscles in the mouth area like the masseters. So that for the look at a comprehensive recording of different parts and organs of the body, and looking to come to a consolidated idea about what is happening in your brain functions during the different stages of sleep.

Host: Right. So you hook up a various electrodes around the body, including the legs, and then you monitor many things and it really gives you then a detailed picture of a person's sleep patterns and rhythms and other things that are important to know.

Dr. Mehta: Correct.

Host: So then when you get the results back, you're able to put together a diagnosis of whatever the sleep issue is.

Dr. Mehta: Right.

Host: Now are there different types of sleep studies?

Dr. Mehta: Yeah. So there are different kinds of sleep issues. And for that, the simple sleep study that I described to you earlier, would be recommended for a person who's got chronic insomnia. And the most common type of insomnia is that that is sleep fragmentation or the person is not getting restful sleep or for whatever reasons. So one could be sleep apnea, could be lag woman disorder, could be chronic insomnia because of underlying anxiety and depression. So by doing the initial sleep study as I described earlier, one would have a better handle about what kind of problem is causing his sleep fragmentation. If it is sleep apnea, the treatment would be different. If it is an insomnia because of anxiety, depression, the treatment will be different.

Host: Okay, got it. So tell us about the different sleep studies that match up with the different sleep issues or conditions.

Dr. Mehta: So the first was the diagnostics sleep study that we talked about, to find out the cause of why person has sleep fragmentation. The second kind is the kind of people who are having chemical imbalance in the brain and therefore not only their sleeping really well during the nighttime, but also are sleeping in the daytime. So that group of people belong to the diagnosis of narcolepsy or chronic hypersomnia. To diagnose these two entity, we have to do what we call as a multiple sleep latency test. So what we are looking is when the person is taking naps in the laboratory after all night sleep study, we are looking for, if that is inclusion of RAM sleep and the DNS usually should not occur. The naps during the day time show RAM sleep. That means that patient is having one of the two causes, the narcolepsy or the chronic hypersomnia. That is also the other kind is MWT, multiple wave test. Now that test is done for people to make sure that they are awake when they need to be awake, especially in the aviation industry. The pilot are asked to take this test to make sure they're awake during the daytime when they have to fly. So these are the three main kinds of tests that we do.

Host: So we're talking about three main sleep studies. You have the overnight sleep study, you have the multiple sleep latency test and the multiple wake tests. Those are the big three, if you will. So then who is a good candidate to take one of these sleep studies and how does it work? Is it by referral only?

Dr. Mehta: So it's just the general policy made up. So by referral only because we want the input of the physician who has seen the patient and evaluated the patient before they refer them to the sleep lab. Because every candidate who thinks that he has a problem with sleep is not a good candidate to study in the laboratory. Like certain insomnia's you don't have to do a sleep study. It is a clinical diagnosis person with restless leg syndrome. It's a clinical diagnosis, and does not require a sleep test. Therefore, as a screening procedure may be better to go through a physician who can determine who would need a sleep study in the laboratory versus who would not need a sleep lab.

Host: So your family practitioner or your primary care provider first, and then that person will refer you to a sleep specialist. This is really interesting and it's good that we have people like you that are experts in this field. And speaking of experts, can you talk a little bit about the sleep lab at Pullman Regional Hospital?

Dr. Mehta: Yeah. So we opened a brand new sleep lab last year and then we filed for the certification of the lab by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. So they have a audit that they inspectors come from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. They send physicians to come over to look at the facility as well, like look at all the protocols, how we are doing things. And we were certified in the first visit. So we are proud of our certification. So lab is totally certified accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. And we are very busy. We do studies every night around the year.

Host: Oh my goodness. I guess there's a lot of people with sleep issues.

Dr. Mehta: Yes. There are many people, I think they say one in five Americans have sleep apnea and one in three Americans have some kind of sleep problem.

Host: Wow. How about that? That's amazing. Well, it just goes to show you how this sleep lab at Pullman Regional is needed if you're running two tests, basically around the clock every day. That's amazing. Well, this is really been eye-opening and informative, Dr. Mehta, thank you for your time.

Dr. Mehta: Thank you, Bill. Take care.

Host: That's Dr. Vinod Mehta. And to get hooked up with a provider and to learn more information, please visit Pullmanregional.org/sleep that's Pullmanregional.org/sleep. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is The Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.