Your nutrition can determine your sleeping patterns. When sleep disorders are being diagnosed, it is a must to understand how the patients are spending both their nights as well as days. Feeling tired regularly is one of the common symptoms associated with several conditions and prominent daytime sleepiness is one important example that needs to be considered. Therefore, if you can identify the feelings of a sleepy patient throughout the day, it will be easy for you to understand the problem and then provide accurate treatment. To understand the problems associated, short and diagnostic tests have to be considered. Given below is a list of the commonly used methods that are used for measuring sleepiness.
Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index
This was developed in 1980 in the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh. This test had been created to identify the connection between sleep disorders as well as psychiatric conditions of the brain. The idea of this diagnostic test is that sleep disorders can be a result of any psychiatric condition that the patient is going through. Developing the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index is attributed to what Dr. Daniel J Buysse has done. This is used as a test for determining whether any patients need detailed as well as thorough sleep investigation by using a polysomnogram. This can help in understanding the following:
- The duration of sleep
- Subjective quality of sleep
- Habitual sleep efficiency
- Disturbances while sleeping
- Sleep latency
- Daytime dysfunction
- Using sleeping medications
All these results are separated into different categories so that doctors can eliminate unlikely candidates by understanding what the patients are going through in their lives. This is undoubtedly a great scale for Measuring Sleepiness for Diagnostic Purposes.
Stanford Sleepiness Scale
The Stanford Sleepiness Scale was developed in 1972 and it is undoubtedly the oldest scales that are used for measuring sleepiness. The process is extremely simple. The patients will be responsible for selecting a value between 1 and 7 and these values are responsible for presenting the amount of sleepiness that they normally feel. The main idea is to understand the fatigue level, which will help your doctor understand the circadian rhythm along with the daily schedule. Most of the doctors are responsible for using this scale as one of the extra diagnostic options along with various other sleep diagnostic methods.
Epworth sleepiness scale
This is also one of the most important diagnostic tools that help in detecting several sleeping disorders. This scale is widely used by both sleep researchers as well as clinicians. This takes almost 10 minutes for completion and it also does not require formal credibility regarding how it is being used. This is undoubtedly one of the most effective scales that are used for diagnosing sleep disorders that are used by several doctors in different parts of the world. It helps to identify the sleepiness of particular individuals and allows doctors to provide treatment based on the results obtained.
Conclusion
It is important to diagnose sleep disorders to make sure that proper treatments are being received by the patients. The diagnostic tests that have been mentioned above are appropriate and make sure that you know everything about them if you are getting yourself diagnosed.