Frequently, you hear doctors talk about doing a sleep study on a patient for screening for airway issues, titrating and confirming the health of an airway with an appliance in place. The number of HSTs and PSGs are increasing every day. One thing that has stood out to me was the variability of a patients sleep habits and issues that can affect the outcome of the test. Insomnia is present in many of the OSA patients, and a single night study whether it be an HST or PSG done in a hospital, it can be greatly misinterpreted if the patient doesn’t sleep well that night because of TEST anxiety first night effect.
Patients have complained that they were uncomfortable and would prefer to do these tests at home.
While attending a seminar at the North American Sleep Symposium a speaker emphasized the importance of screening for more than one night for initial screening or confirming the efficacy of an appliance. Testing in a hospital as you know, is very expensive. While we shouldn’t let cost drive our healthcare decisions, we can certainly use cost and convenience as a reason patients don’t get healthcare. Let’s do our part in making healthcare more accessible & improve people’s lives. Using a NoxT3 or the PulseOx can make getting screened, and treated much more affordable for the doctor and the patient.
Contact me if you would like to know more or schedule a consultation to discuss the NoxT3 and Nonin PulseOx using the ProFox software to access the oxygen and heart rates. I can be reached at sorussa@whipmix.com.