Sleep labs are facilities designed to study sleep disorders, often attached to universities and hospitals. Patients participate in sleep studies to diagnose conditions or contribute to sleep research. Rooms are designed like hotel rooms, with equipment hidden away, and patients may wear monitors to observe brain and heart activity. Technicians work with patients to ensure comfort, and information is sent to doctors or used for research.
A sleep laboratory or sleep clinic is a facility designed for the purpose of studying sleep disorders. Because studying such disorders requires people to fall asleep, a sleep lab is designed to be a comfortable place to sleep in addition to being a scientific facility. These laboratories are often attached to major universities and hospitals, although in some cases they are completely separate entities.
People enter the lab when they participate in a sleep study. There are two reasons to participate in a sleep study: to diagnose specific conditions or to contribute to general advances in sleep research. In the case of a specific condition, a patient will be asked to go to the sleep lab so that technicians can collect data on the patient’s sleep patterns to look into issues as varied as sleep apnea and snoring. For more general studies, people agree to be studied so researchers can learn more about sleep.
Most sleep labs are divided into a number of patient rooms designed much like hotel rooms, with basic beds and amenities to make sleep more natural and comfortable. Depending on the design, patients may have private bathrooms or may use shared toilets, and many labs also have showers so people can go straight from the lab to work in the morning.
Patient rooms in sleep labs are typically equipped with regular beds, and equipment is often hidden away in closets or walls to make the room feel more natural. The laboratory may also include a sample analysis laboratory, along with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine and other diagnostic equipment that may be used as part of the sleep study.
Depending on what is being studied, a patient may wear various monitors while sleeping to observe things like brain activity, heart activity, blood pressure changes, and so on. Typically, a sleep technician works with the patient when they arrive, explaining what will happen and the purpose of the study, and making sure the patient is comfortable. After the sleep study is completed, the patient’s information will be sent to their doctor or compiled into the research material used to study sleep.
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