Sleep is one of the most important bodily functions and vital to every organ in the body. For those with sleep disorders though, an ample and normal night’s rest isn’t always a given.
For the past 14 years, Sleep Medicine Services of Western Massachusetts has been diagnosing and treating thousands of people in the Pioneer Valley every year with oftentimes undiagnosed sleep disorders that impact health and overall wellness.
Sleep Medicine Services, which has offices in Springfield, Northampton, and Greenfield, tests for a variety of sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, insomnia, sleepwalking, and one of the most common sleep disorders — sleep apnea.
Dr. Brian Smith, a neurologist and principal of Sleep Medicine Services, said sleep apnea is caused when a patient’s tongue blocks their airways at night when they sleep. This causes them to stop breathing at various intervals throughout the night, Smith said, leading to all of the body’s organs receiving less oxygen, which in turn causes higher blood pressure, blood sugar levels, inflammation, and a chronic feeling of sleepiness during the daytime.
“Excessive daytime sleepiness is the one that people are so frustrated with,” Smith said. “Everyone has it from time to time, but there’s some people who have it every day. They’re dragging all the time and it’s affecting their quality of life, their work, and everything. People come to us frequently and then we do a sleep evaluation.”
Untreated sleep apnea can even shorten a person’s lifespan, contributing to heart disease, and diabetes, Smith said. People who are overweight have an increased risk for sleep apnea, but about a third of people with sleep apnea are a healthy weight. People who frequently snore in their sleep are also at a higher risk for sleep apnea.
“We opened in 2005 and that was the same time that all the data started coming out that untreated sleep apnea was associated with heart disease and stroke,” Smith said. “It was one of the reasons we kind of moved forward with it.”
About 80 percent of the people they see have sleep apnea, he said. Between the three locations, they conduct more than 400 sleep studies every month, which involves a patient staying overnight to record their vitals — blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels via a polysomnograph. Every week, there are also about 80 home tests for sleep apnea that are reviewed by the sleep service center.
During the sleep diagnostic test, a sleep technician monitors the patient and the data from the polysomnograph until about 6:30 the next morning, Smith said.
“Basically, the person has all types of wires on them because we’re monitoring all types of physiological data,” Smith said. “We do [electroencephalography] monitoring and the reason we do that is that we can see different stages of sleep. We want to see what different stages of sleep people are in so we can see whether they’re sleeping or not sleeping. It can also help us with certain types of disorders and what that person’s sleep is like during the night. They might not have sleep apnea, but have leg movements.”
Missy Novak, a certified physician assistant at the sleep study center, works overnight by evaluating patients who stay for a sleep study.
“Somebody’s hanging out with you the entire night,” Novak said. “They’re not in the room with you. I watch a bunch of squiggly lines on a computer.”
If a patient is found to have sleep apnea, how are they treated? A device that provides continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) unblocks a patient’s airways via the machine and a mask that they wear overnight during sleep.
“It’s really impressive to see someone with sleep apnea and you treat them,” Smith said. “All their abnormalities go away.”
He said he had one patient swear that she’d never use a CPAP machine, but during a followup appointment, she asked for a battery backup for her CPAP because she was planning on going camping overnight.
“I have friends who are both twins with severe sleep apnea,” Smith said. “Occasionally when I was going through the area, I’d stay at their house. The whole house would shake. They would snore so bad. They finally got their machines and they wear them before they go to bed at night. They watch TV with them on. They say they relax with it and absolutely love them.”
Novak said what’s rewarding about her work is having an impact on people’s overall wellness by evaluating their sleeping habits and looking for sleep disorders.
“Most of the time people feel better when they’re treated for sleep apnea,” she said. “That’s the fun part. I worked in primary care for a long time and there’s a lot of ‘Take this and I’ll see you in a couple weeks and we’ll see what else is causing the problems.’”
Chris Goudreau can be reached at cgoudreau@gazettenet.com.