Anyone had an in-home sleep study?

[terp1984]

Has anyone had an in-home sleep study? I'm not referring to one of those do-it-yourself kits, but rather when the sleep technician actually comes to your home with all the necessary equipment (computer, camera, etc.).

Is there anything special required for the homeowner to provide (such as WiFi)? Was this for multiple nights in a row or just one? Also, if anyone has had both at-home sleep study and one at the sleep lab, I would be curious to know the pros and cons of each.

[PaulaO2]

Not heard of one where the sleep tech comes and sets it up. But there are the ones where you go to them and they attach you to a home unit and you go home to sleep with it. Some folks here have gone that route as it is much, much cheaper.

[jgjones1972]

I did the ApneaLink one (sent to me in the mail, put it on myself and sent back to lab). I can't really see what any advantage would be to having them hook it up. If you are wearing it at home, then they aren't going to be able to get much more than what you get with ApneaLink. They can't possibly set up a full polysomnography at your house.

I've only ever heard of the at home ones you do yourself or the full scale lab ones...don't really think there could be much benefit to an in between.

[zonk]

I've not heard of it either but sound plausible
Sort of like Mobile Sleep Lab (MSL), they come to you instead of you going to them, pizza delivery included

[terp1984]

I saw an ad for such a service last year, but I don't see it online anymore. Maybe it was just too expensive. I see the advantage that a live person is monitoring me. If I stop breathing and he/she is unable to get me started again by turning up the pressure (a real possibility if I lie flat), then I can be awakened instead of suffocating to death. I suppose I could just convince some family members to take turns watching me.

Of course, in a lab THAT problem is solved, but after seven in-lab sleep studies, the common issue has been I don't sleep (not much anyway).

[JimZZZ]

Has anyone had an in-home sleep study?

I was given a home sleep study several years ago by a local home care service and it was considered legitimate for prescribing CPAP. The home care service asked what time I went to bed and sent a clinician to my home to hook me up. I was instructed on how to temporarily disconnect for bathroom breaks, etc. The next day, I disconnected myself and took the recording device to the home care office.

BUT...my recent studies (2013) had to be done at a certified sleep lab because Medicare will not accept results from a home sleep study. Presumably, it's our government looking out for us...

I could see no difference between home versus sleep lab except the home study, in familiar surroundings, produced a more typical sleep pattern.

[Rhymer]

Yes, I had an in-home sleep study; it was sent to me in the mail. Wore it one night and returned it via FedEx.

And it was far less than $650... just sayin'.

Not saying that this is a better way to do things... but I don't sleep well in hotels or strange places, and wasn't crazy about the whole sleep center thing. YMMV

[APAAW]

I've been through two in-hospital sleep studies myself. I never made it into REM sleep on one of them, so it missed most of my typical apneas. On the second one, I finally got into enough REM sleep to have plenty'o'apneas, but the titration seemed to have been a bit off, understandably enough given the data they had to work with.

I'd venture to guess that I would have slept more normally at home during either sleep study. Being closer to my apneatic "normal" could only have helped the diagnostics.

Providing better health care to more people at lower cost seems like a Really Good Thing (and a rare one at that). A quality in-home sleep study sounds like the way to go, whenever possible.

Apneaboard.com - that is to say, its people - have been among the biggest contributors to my longer-term success (such as it is) with CPAP, right up there with my current sleep doc and staff. Coming in a respectable third have been the YouTube videos etc. from TheLankyLefty27, whom herbm has mentioned above. Credit where credit's due to everyone

FWIW, it appears Jason Sazama and his MD use the Respironics Alice PDx box; given its "optional ECG and ExG yokes and the optional therapy interface" it sounds capable of supporting a serious home sleep study. The search words of "sleep alicepdx respironics" given to duckduckgo or google or whatever your favorite search engine is, ought to get you there right away.

[herbm]

The question for "cheap" sleep studies is:

Did you have the full set of instrumentation, including EEG, Pulse Ox, breathing, etc.?

If so that is a good sleep study.