Piedmont Summerville Sleep Study Lab
More than 40 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder that prevents them from getting restful, uninterrupted sleep every night. These people can find help through their physicians and the Piedmont Summerville Sleep Study Lab.
The Piedmont Summerville Sleep Study Lab opened in 1995 to provide diagnostics for people who can’t sleep. We have eight sleep rooms and are open seven nights a week. Patients come to the lab for their studies between 8:30-8:45 p.m. and are able to leave the next morning around 6-6:30 a.m. A polysomnograph technician will position small sensors on the patient's head, legs, face and chest to continuously record brain waves, muscle activity, leg, arm and eye movements, heart rhythms and other body functions during sleep. Patients sleep in complete darkness, but an infrared video camera and microphone monitor their every move and sound. A registered polysomnograph technologist will score the study and compile the final report to be sent to the reading physician.
Symptoms of a serious sleep disorder include:
- Excessive snoring
- Excessive daytime drowsiness
- Irritability
- Decline in job performance, ability to concentrate and attention span
- Excessive activity during sleep - kicking, moving, tossing, turning
- Chronic insomnia
- Early morning headaches
Services
- Diagnosis of different types and severities of sleep disorders, including: narcolepsy (sleep attacks at inappropriate times)
- Nocturnal myoclonus (restless leg syndrome)
- Nocturnal hypoxia (drop in the normal level of oxygen in the blood)
- Sleep apnea (respiratory system disorder that causes sleepers to stop breathing for up to two minutes many times a night)