Last modified: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 1:13 PM PDT Jennifer Colton | Argus Observer Shannon Page, licensed respiratory care practitioner and register polysomnographic technologist, prepares a bed in the new Sleep Disorders Center at Holy Rosary Medical Center Tuesday. The center began seeing patients April 2 and will have an open house May 24. Sleep clinic adds new dimension to hospital By Jennifer Colton | Argus Observer Ontario - One day last week, Shannon Page pulled back the blanket and fluffed the pillows on a queen-sized bed, complete with a pillow-top mattress and custom comforter, preparing a room for an expected guest. Wall light fixtures cast a subtle glow onto the forest-green wall, dark wood furnishings and artwork. The scene could belong in any high-end hotel, but it is really just one suite at the new Sleep Disorders Center at Holy Rosary Medical Center. “It's amazing to note that we know very little about sleep,” Dr. Patrick Plummer, medical director of the clinic, said Tuesday. “We know about the dead body through autopsy, we know about the waking body, but we know virtually nothing about the sleeping body.” The Sleep Disorders Center tested its first patients April 2, and for now is only running treatments four days a week. When it begins full time work after a grand opening next month, the center will treat or test 72 patients a month. The most common tests performed at the center revolve around sleep apnea, a condition where airways are blocked, usually when the soft tissue in the rear of the throat collapses and closes, during sleep. “It's kind of like going out with your friends and drinking a pop and you chew on the straw,” Plummer said. “The end eventually gets flat and if you turn it around and blow through the other end, it stays flat and all the air doesn't go through.” Side effects from sleep apnea can include high blood pressure, daytime weariness, memory problems, weight gain, headaches and cardiovascular disease. “Sleep apnea has been known since the time of Charles Dickens,” Plummer said, citing an example in the Pickwick Papers. In the 1980s, doctors in Australia began using CPAP - constant positive airway pressure - technology on sleep apnea patients. The technology was developed for pilots and helps hold the airways open and allows a patient to breathe freely during sleep, Plummer said. “Sleep apnea is a huge player in health care in the world,” Plummer said. “The best large-population studies give it a 2 percent instance in women and 4 percent in men, but it's been estimated that only 1 to 5 percent of people with sleep apnea have been diagnosed.” The center offers a questionnaire on obstructive sleep apnea which includes comments such as: I have been told I snore, I sometimes suffer from daytime sleepiness, I have been told that I hold my breath or stop breathing in my sleep, I sometimes fall asleep while watching TV, I often get morning headaches. Positive answers to five or more symptoms on the list suggest a significant chance of sleep apnea and the individual should be tested, the questionnaire states. “Snoring, stopping breathing or snorting during sleep and daytime sleepiness are the three main things to watch for,” Plummer said. The Sleep Disorders Center hosts monthly AWAKE - Alert, Well, and Keeping Energetic- meetings for people with sleep apnea who use CPAP. These informational meetings are open to the public and are held at 4 p.m. the third Thursday of every month in the Snake River Conference Room at HRMC. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce will hold a Chamber After Hours session at the center from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. April 19, and the Sleep Disorders Center open house will be from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. May 24. The Sleep Disorders Center operates from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. - for nocturnal testing - Sunday through Wednesday. For more information, call the center office at (541) 881-7477; call (541) 881-7474 to schedule an appointment, doctor referral required. The center will test and treat a wide variety of sleep conditions, but patients and their families have to make the first step by recognizing there is a problem, Plummer said. “What's amazing is that stuff can happen and if it happens long enough, people will normalize it,” Plummer said. “Don't let this go on because we have treatments for all of it.”