If you know someone who might have sleep apnea—a disease, if left untreated, could lead to heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure and Type II diabetes—there may be a new, cost-effective and easy way for them to be evaluated.
Jim Boyle, a Registered Respiratory Therapist and Sleep Disorder Specialist, has launched a new website called NuLungs.com that offers at-home sleep apnea screening and diagnostic treatment modalities.
“With traditional sleep lab tests you go into a facility, they hook you up to a series of wires and then ask you to sleep ‘normally,’ in a strange place and knowing that people are watching you,” he said. “Who can sleep like that?”
The sleep test machine measures the patient’s respiratory effort, airflow, pulse rate and oxygenation through three non-invasive sensors. And, the test results will indicate the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure during sleep, how many times the patient stopped or slowed breathing, how long the patient slept—even how long the machine was worn.
You do need a physician prescription. Then the NuLungs.com test gets shipped directly to your home and comes with a DVD tutorial. The company also provides a hotline where patients can talk with a registered respiratory therapist or sleep disorder specialist.
According to Boyle, NuLungs.com offers an at-home alternative to traditional sleep tests that reduces the cost of diagnosis and treatment by nearly 80 percent. It is also Medicare approved.
Once the test is received by NuLungs, the raw data about the patient’s night sleep will be downloaded directly from the machine and a sleep disorder specialist or physician will analyze the results and produce a report with suggested recommendations for treatment or therapy in less than 24 hours, Boyle said.
You can even take a free screening exam on the NuLungs website to determine if the full diagnostic test might be what you need.
Pretty neat.
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