Sleep clinic adds new dimension to hospital
By Jennifer Colton | Argus Observer
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 1:13 PM PDT
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| 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. |
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.”
Cody W. Ables wrote on May 16, 2008 11:04 PM:
Here is something that we should all read. This is a letter from an angry woman in New Jersey regarding the War in Iraq and all of the war’s negative publicity. Pay attention.
'Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001?
Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania?
Did nearly three-thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was 'desecrated' when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?...Well, I don't. I don't care at all.
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia .
I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.
When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care.
Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!
If you don't agree, then by all means quit reading. Should you choose to do so, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:
'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem' -- Ronald Reagan
I have another quote that I would like to add
'If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.' Also by.. Ronald Reagan
One last thought for the day:
In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the Anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said: 'A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in.. And how many want out.'
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The American G. I.
Important for us all!!!!
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
MANY SEEM TO FORGET BOTH OF THEM. AMEN!’
I hope you take this woman’s viewpoint into consideration. It closely parallels my own. As I begin my journey in becoming a soldier of the greatest country in the world, hearing this woman’s words sets my heart at ease. It is warming to know that there are people in this great country who still care about those men and women who have no choice.
Cody W. Ables
U.S. Air Force Academy 2012
"