I just received my sleep study results and have a followup sleep study tonight.  Can someone please help me understand my test results ?
This is what the report said:
"Glenda underwent a diagnostic polysomnogram on 1-23-08.  The patient was in bed for 358 minutes, slept for 251 minutes and had a sleep efficiency of 70%.  Latency to sleep onset of 11 minutes is normal.  REM Latency could not be determined as no REM sleep occurred.  The patient had 40 awakenings and 359 arousals that led to 86 arousals per hour of sleep noted.  The patient had 11 apneas, 315 hypopneas with and apnea/hypopnea index of 78.  No change was noted with change in positin.  The patient had a low saturdation of oxygen of 80% in non-REM sleep.  She spent 7% of the evening less than 90% saturdated.  The patient had 52 periodic limb movements, 10 inducted arousal.  The patient had 592 respiratory efford related arousals adding an additional 142 arousals per hour of sleep.  This patient has severe disease.  Treatment is needed as soon as possible"
All I know is when I took this test, it was pure hell.  I felt like I didnt sleep at all.  The nurses were wonderful and they finally let me go home at 4am.
Can someone please explain to me what all of this means ?

If you have not already done so, I would encourage you to review the sticky post on Sleep Study Terms in this section of the forum.

I am not a medical professional but I will try to explain the major things in this study as best I can.

One area that is looked at during a sleep study is what are called respiratory events. These are broken down into apneas (events lasting 10 seconds or longer where there is no intake of air into the lungs), hypopneas (events lasting 10 seconds or longer where there is a significant reduction of air into the lungs), and respiratory effort related arousals (usually referred to as RERAs, these are events lasting 10 seconds or longer of educed breathing-not meeting the standards for hypopnea or apnea-that lead to an arousal). Apneas and hypopneas may be classified as obstructive (meaning that there is a normal effort to breath but airflow is either blocked or restricted), central (meaning that the normal effort to breath is absent or reduced), or mixed (meaning that the event combines features of both obstructive and central events).

Overall, in evaluating respiratory events, sleep apnea is measured by the Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI). This is simply the number of episodes of apnea and the number of episodes of hypopnea recorded during a sleep study divided by the number of hours of recorded sleep. An AHI of under 5 is considered normal. An AHI of 5 to 15 is usually considered to represent mild sleep apnea. An AHI of 15 to 30 is considered to represent moderate sleep apnea and an AHI of 30 or more is usually considered to represent severe sleep apnea. The RDI (respiratory disturbance index is another measure similar to the AHI. The difference is that the RDI includes the number of RERAs recorded during your study (as well as the number of apneas and hypopneas, all divided by the number of hours of sleep during the study).

In your study you had 78 respiratory events (11 obstructive apneas and 315 hypopneas) recorded during your full study for an overall AHI of 78. You also had a large number of arousals (abrupt transitions from a deeper stage of sleep to a shallower stage of sleep) and awakenings (transitions from a sleep state to an awake state as measured by EEG primarily). It does not appear that your sleeping position had much effect on your apnea (for many people it is worse when sleeping on your back as opposed to sleeping on the side). Associated with your respiratory events you had drops in your blood oxygen level. Your low blood oxygen level was 80% and you spent about 15 minutes overall with a blood oxygen level under 90%.

Overall, the AHI would indicate that you have severe sleep apnea. The large number of respiratory-related arousals is a possible indicator of other respiratory events (not severe enough to be classified as apneas or hypopneas) that are also affecting your sleep (the arousals keep you from getting enough slow wave-aka stage 3 & 4, or delta-
sleep and/or REM sleep-these are thought to be the two most important stages of sleep for your physical well-being).

Hope this helps.

Do keep us posted and good luck.

Best wishes,
Bill

Hey Glenda!

I too am no sleep pro, but imagine if every 45 seconds (86 times an hour) someone came into your room and blasted an air horn....all night long for weeks on end.  You wouldn't get ANY sleep and would probably be pretty miserable!  

Well, that's what is happening (sans air horn).  You have an average of 86 arousals an hour and though you may not consciously realize it, your body/mind isn't getting ANY rest.  You had -0- REM sleep, which is a bad one.  According to the Wiki:

Wikipedia wrote:

It fulfills important physiological needs vital for survival to the extent that prolonged REM sleep deprivation leads to death in experimental animals. In both humans and experimental animals, REM sleep loss leads to several behavioral and physiological abnormalities. Loss of REM sleep has been noticed during various natural and experimental infections. Survivability of the experimental animals decreases when REM sleep is totally attenuated during infection. This leads to the possibility that the quality and quantity of REM sleep is generally essential for normal body physiology.

You also aren't getting enough oxygen, only 80% at one point which is another bad one.  You are drowning over & over again every night.  Depriving your brain, heart and other internal organs of oxygen.  Over time this will badly damage them and can lead to all sorts of ugliness.

You "apnea/hypopnea index" or AHI was 78.  Like Bill said above, anything over 30 is considered "severe" so you can see you are way up the scale!  The clinician was correct, you do have a severe disease, but the GOOD news is that you can do something about it and I will bet you will feel dramatically better after CPAP.

Follow your Doctors instructions, get fitted and start feeling better!

Bill you did a good job on the sleep study. Latency to sleep on set means how long it took you to fall asleep. They like to keep your O2 sat in the 90"s , below 90 is hard on your heart. Your AHI is very high. It states no change in AHI with pt position. Most people are more severe in supine position or laying on your back, decubitis position is on your side and prone is face down. If someone was severe on there back but had no events on there side they would have them try to sleep on there side. When you are treated with CPAP you should feel much better. The study shows no dream sleep which your body needs. Normally you have a REM period every 90min of sleep. Just hang in there when you start, If it does not come easy just try to add to your time each night. You can even use it while watching TV to get use to it. The pressure will seam to go away. I have people call me once a week and ask If there CPAP is working OK, they say the CPAP is not blowing like it use to. I will check it on a gauge and everything is OK they have got use to the pressure. Try to blow your nose before going to bed, no mouth breathing iF you have a nasal mask on. GOOD LUCK