Sleep Technology

Sleep spindles are an information processing and transferring feature of the sleeping brain. With that in mind, AAST gathered together leading sleep-care professionals to discuss hot topics in the field — transferring information from them to you. AAST board member Allen Boone, RPSGT, RST, CCRA, CCRC, hosts this four-part video series. In our second installment, we have an interview with fellow board members Julie DeWitte, RST, RPSGT, RCP, and Laree J. Fordyce, RST, RPSGT, CCSH, on the topic of why CPAP adherence is so critical.

Jessica Schmidt, RPSGT, CCSH, FACHE, is presenting the breakout session "The Field of Sleep Medicine in the Context of the American Healthcare Landscape” at the AAST 2018 Annual Meeting, Sept. 28-30, 2018, in Indianapolis. We caught up with Schmidt to discuss her background and the future of sleep medicine.

Sleep spindles are an information processing and transferring feature of the sleeping brain. With that in mind, AAST gathered together leading sleep-care professionals to discuss hot topics in the field — transferring information from them to you. AAST board member Allen Boone, RPSGT, RST, CCRA, CCRC, hosts this four-part video series, starting with an interview with fellow board members Julie DeWitte, RST, RPSGT, RCP, and Kristina Weaver, EMPT-P, RPSGT, on the topic of primary care physicians versus sleep specialists.

Recently, I have been reading the book “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker, Ph.D. He not only has a passion for all things sleep, but he has a superb knack for explaining the subject matter in a very friendly and easy-to-understand manner. This is a gift for a writer of science when one is trying to reach a large audience and improve health issues by explaining such sleep topics as “synaptogenesis,” which he whittles down to a definition of “the creation of millions of wiring links, or synapses between neurons” and “an overenthusiastic first pass at setting up the mainframe of a brain” of an infant.

This is the second in a series of articles dealing with the changing landscape of sleep technology. In this article, we’ll take a brief look at our present understanding of sleep as well as review some of the technology we use in our sleep centers.

When I started my sleep career, little did I know all the options that would become available to me. At the time, my belief was that there was the night technologist (me, who did all the work) and then there was a daytime scoring technologist (who did nothing but complain about how I did my job). When I moved into the daytime technologist role, I finally learned how much work that was. I later moved into the manager role, and I realized there were quite a few more jobs I had to cover. One of those jobs was getting patient referrals from physicians to fill the beds in the sleep center. I was told it was “marketing.”

I often start the day with great expectations. I’ll finish the syllabus for my upcoming Sleep and Dreams class. I’ll write a blog or two. I’ll put together a Case of the Month. I’ll clean out the closet that filled up with boxes when we moved last year and hasn’t been touched since then. I’ll brew up some potent coffee to stimulate my thinking. I’ll sit down in front of my computer. I’ll check the email. I’ll look at a few pictures of cats stumbling around on catnip. I’ll shuffle a few lecture slides around. I’m ready for a nap.

Lisa M. Bond, RST, RPSGT, is the director of clinical services and scoring at Advanced Sleep Management LLC. AAST caught up with her for insight on the evolution of sleep services in healthcare.

This is the final installment in a six-part series on the evolution of the sleep technologist role. AAST has engaged professionals from across allied healthcare to address, from their perspective, the value of collaborating more closely with sleep technologists and/or incorporating the discipline into their area of health. Nurses, Heal Thyself! I am a nurse. I have been for 20 years, and I have been tired for those entire two decades. I am not alone. As nurses, we are called upon to be superheroes ... impervious to things like hunger, pain, sadness and fatigue. We keep going. As the years go on we become crusty and curt. We proudly earn the nickname ‘Nurse Ratchett’. We show up. We put aside our fatigue to care for patients because we consider the need for sleep to be a character flaw; only for the weak. A true nurse can churn out shift after shift, even on minimal sleep because we will never abandon our patients.

This is part four in a six-part series on the evolution of the sleep technologist. AAST has engaged professionals from across allied healthcare to address, from their perspective, the value of collaborating closer with sleep technologists and/or incorporating the discipline into their area of health.  Orofacial myology is the study and understanding of the normal and abnormal patterns surrounding the development of the muscles of the face and mouth, and in turn, how they affect speech, swallowing, dentition and sleep, among other areas. A myofunctional therapy provider is concerned with the importance of a term coined Oral Rest Posture (ORP). This refers to the proper resting place of the tongue in one’s oral cavity. At rest, the tongue should rest against the upper alveolar ridge, just behind the front teeth. The tongue should rest against the palate, with the sides of the tongue contained by the teeth. This position provides the proper foundation for the growth and development of the entire craniofacial mechanism and guides a persons tooth eruption, craniofacial and airway development.