Valid reasons and indications for a sleep study may include any of the following:
- Snoring which disturbs your bed partner (or neighbours!)
- Always tired
- Falling asleep whilst driving
- Disturbed sleep
- Going to the bathroom during the night
- Waking up tired
- Waking up with a headache
- Waking up with a dry or sore throat
- High blood pressure (or on medication)
- Depressed (or on medication)
- Evidence of or witnessed teeth grinding overnight
- Sexual dysfunction (or on medication)
- Thick, short neck (circumference > 42 cm in men, > 38 cm in women)
- BMI > 30 kg/cm – although about 10% of people with sleep apnea are “skinny” – they just have narrow airways.
If you have any of the above symptoms, you may have sleep apnea which can be easily and quickly treated. The first step is to complete and send us the online Request Form.
Home Sleep conducts sleep studies anywhere in Melbourne, coming to your home in to give you the easiest and most comfortable complete sleep apnoea test in Melbourne.
What a Home Sleep Apnoea Test in Melbourne Involves
After talking to one of our team to assess whether you qualify for Medicare and fill in your details, one of our sleep scientists will come to your house, wherever you live in Melbourne, during an evening of your choosing to set you up with a sleep study device to measure:
- Sleep stages
- Times you woke up, even if only for a few seconds
- Breathing
- Snoring
- Blood oxygen level
With these measurements we are able to accurately test for sleep related breathing disorders, mainly obstructive sleep apnoea, without long waiting times or the discomfort of sleeping in a hospital sleep clinic.
The whole process of getting set up for a sleep study takes around 20 minutes, the scientist then leaves you to spend an otherwise normal evening at home; you go to bed at your usual time, sleep as you otherwise would and get up at your usual time.
What Does The Sleep Study Report Tell Me?
The main indices included in the sleep report are:
- Arousal Index (How many times you woke up, even if only for as little as 3 seconds, per hour of sleep)
- Respiratory Arousal Index (How many times per hour of sleep you had any airway obstruction)
- Apnoea Hypopnea Index (How many times per hour of sleep you had a large, obvious airway obstruction or pause in respiratory drive that caused you to wake up or decreased your blood oxygen saturation)
- Minimum blood oxygen level and a graph of blood oxygen levels throughout your sleep
- Sleep stages including total sleep time and percentage of the night spent in deep sleep and REM sleep
- Positions you slept in and when
- How your sleep apnoea varies in different sleeping positions or sleep stages throughout the night
- Heart rate
- Any indications of irregular heartbeats
- Evidence of teeth grinding
- Snoring
What Happens The Morning After The Sleep Study?
After you wake up in the morning, you can take all the wires off yourself and bring everything in to one of our two Melbourne locations in South Yarra or Cheltenham to have your sleep study consultation. During this consultation we will analyse your study there and then, giving you your sleep study results and discussing what the results mean, how they might be affecting you and the possible ways to remedy any issues that we find. If you’re too busy or too far away to come into our two Melbourne offices, you can have the sleep study kit dropped off and take an online Telehealth appointment where we will go over the results of your study in the same way as the in-person consultation.
What Treatments are Available?
- CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) is the most effective sleep apnoea treatment available. CPAP holds your upper airway open by a constant supply of air pressure through a mask that you wear to sleep. In the event the sleep study results show there is significant obstructive sleep apnoea and after discussing all the possible options, you decide that CPAP treatment is for you, we can set you up with a machine and mask during the consultation appointment. This means we can go straight from identifying the problem to solving it in a single meeting.
- If for whatever reason you decide that the benefits of CPAP will not outweigh the hassle of sleeping with the mask and extra air pressure, a mandibular advancement splint (MAS) will be your best option. These need to be fitted by a specially trained dentist and are made from a dental impression.
- For mild sleep apnoea, less expensive and invasive treatments have been shown to be effective such as mouth taping, avoiding sleeping on your back if the sleep study shows a significant positional difference, or oropharyngeal exercises to strengthen the muscles in the upper airway.
Advantages of Home Sleep Studies Over a Study in a Sleep Clinic
Benefits to patients
- Independent diagnosis
- Independent assessment of treatment
- Sleep study test in the comfort of your own home
- No hospital bed fees
- Freedom of movement
- Move around and resume most daily activities while wired up
- Go to the bathroom at any time during the night without assistance
- Roll over in bed easily
- FAST! Results are available the next day. Full doctors report within one week.
- Treatment can start the next day.
- No private health cover required
- No GP referral required (this is provided as part of the service)
- Sleep study reported by experienced Sleep Scientists and Sleep Physicians based in Australia
Benefits to GPs, dentists, ENT surgeons and other doctors
- Direct request for a sleep study
- Fast turnaround time – sleep study reported by a Sleep Scientist and Sleep Physician usually within 10 days.
- No capital outlay required for equipment – the sleep monitoring system is on permanent loan (as long as it is used frequently)
- Staff training provided and assistance in finding staff if required
Benefits to Sleep Physicians
- See patients who are more educated and have already tried simple treatments
- Propose a treatment plan at the first consultation with the benefit of facts from a full diagnostic PSG sleep study report
- Provide a more efficient, lower cost sleep diagnostic and treatment service to a greater number of patients
Benefits to Private Health Funds, Hospitals and Governments
- Frees up bed spaces
- Less than half total cost of diagnosing and treating sleep disorders
- Early detection and treatment minimizes chances of patient’s developing more costly health complications such as high blood pressure, strokes and heart disease