Sleep Apnea Diagnosis: Tests & Procedures

Sleep studies or polysomnography

- Overnight in-lab testing

- Continuous monitoring of many body functions and activities during asleep: brain activity, heart rate and rhythm, breathing, oxygen levels, limb movement, airflow

- May also have a multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) to measure average sleep latency during four or five short test periods in the daytime to provide a precise daytime measure of sleep propensity that can help the clinician to assess daytime symptoms of sleepiness

Home Sleep Studies:

- At-home testing for lower risk people with higher pretest probabilities of sleep apnea

- Limited number of signals monitored (respiratory flow and effort, pulse rate)

- Portable type 2 or level 3 sleep studies, which measure breathing and oxygen levels

Nasal airflow or pulse oximetry testing

- Nasal cannula or pulse oximetry

- Measures airflow or oxygen levels alone, so it isn't as comprehensive as polysomnography

- Most appropriate as an initial test for people who are at very high risk of OSA