Receive quality care for your brain and spine.
Your brain and spine have important work to do, and when they’re not working well, you feel it. The neurologists at Hancock Health help keep your brain healthy and your body happy. We can also help with sleep disorders.
Hancock Sleep Disorder Center
If you have trouble falling asleep or wake feeling fatigued, help is here.
The Sleep Center at Hancock Regional Hospital can diagnose and treat the most common and complex causes for disrupted sleep. We offer comfortable sleep suites and even have diagnostic tools that can be used in the comfort of your own home. Discover the difference in your day from a good night’s sleep.
Call (317) 468-4610 to schedule a sleep health consultation.
Sleep Disorders
If you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or even if you just wake up feeling tired, you may be suffering from a sleep disorder. The Sleep Center at Hancock Regional Hospital can diagnose and treat common and complex causes of disrupted sleep. Schedule a sleep study in one of our four comfortable sleep suites to find your diagnosis fast—usually in less than a week. We also have diagnostic tools that can be used in the comfort of your own home. If you experience any of the following symptoms, you may benefit from consulting a sleep specialist:
- Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
- Loud snoring or gasping
- Disrupted sleep
- Unrefreshing sleep
- Daytime fatigue
- Aches and pains, especially in the back
- Unusual behaviors during sleep (such as sleepwalking or sleep talking)
Left untreated, sleep disorders can lead to serious health disorders—from daytime sleepiness (which may have serious consequences such as car or workplace accidents) to high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, heart attack, or stroke. Medical or surgical therapies can correct sleep disorders. The method of treatment is determined by the type and severity of the disorder. Most insurance plans cover both sleep study and treatment.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea
A person with obstructive sleep apnea may stop breathing repeatedly during sleep due to a collapse of the airway generally caused by excess tissue in the back of the airway, a decrease in the tone of the muscles holding the airway open, or the tongue falling back and closing off the airway. Any of these prevent air from entering the lungs, interrupting healthy sleep.
Narcolepsy
Narcolepsy is a chronic neurologic disorder characterized by the failure of normal boundaries between being asleep and awake. Symptoms vary in frequency and severity.
- The most common symptom is excessive daytime sleepiness, which occurs in 100 percent of patients diagnosed with narcolepsy.
- Episodes of muscle weakness (known as cataplexy) are the second most common symptom, occurring in 60 percent to 100 percent of patients. The Hancock Regional Hospital Sleep Disorders Center is working with exciting new medications that dramatically reduce the occurrence of cataplexy.
- Vivid hallucinations occurring at sleep onset (known as hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations) occur in 15 percent to 80 percent of patients.
Fewer than 50 percent of narcoleptic patients are diagnosed. Significant problems with diagnosing narcolepsy mean that many patients are incorrectly diagnosed with depression, fibromyalgia, or epilepsy.
Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (Nocturnal Myoclonus)
Periodic limb movement disorder involves disruptive movements of the legs and arms that occur during sleep and may be related to restless leg syndrome. The movements occur at regular intervals, usually every 30 seconds, and are clustered into episodes lasting anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. These limb movements may lead to excessive daytime sleepiness or sleep-maintenance insomnia.
EEG
EEG is an abbreviation for “electroencephalogram,” a recording of the electrical activity generated by the neurons of the brain. An EEG conducted during sleep—or when the subject has been deprived of sleep—can determine the presence of seizures during states of sleep or extreme fatigue. Before the test, you may be given medicine to induce sleep. The test lasts for roughly one or two hours, and then the patient is allowed to go home upon awakening.
