The laboratory evaluation of sleep and its disorders

Abstract

The physician's ability to evaluate a patient's sleep performance objectively and to study a variety of physiological functions and diseases while that patient is asleep has focused attention on sleep studies (polysomnography) as a clinically useful investigative tool. The author of this article briefly reviews the normal evolution of sleep and the classification of sleep disorders, and outlines procedures commonly used by staff of sleep-disorder clinics to assess patients.