Ahmed S. BaHammam

Written for sleep technologists, Clinical Atlas of Polysomnography provides basic information regarding normal sleep, sleep disorders, and electrophysiology that is outside of the scope of the AASM manual (AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events). It aims to act as a guide through the fundamental aspects of, for example, types of overnight sleep study, establishing a sleep laboratory, preparing the patient for a sleep evaluation study, placement of electrodes and leads, and the scientific aspects of such placement, i.e., why they are placed at that particular position. This information will be very useful in those parts of the globe where formal training in sleep technology is not yet available.

Many further chapters focus on depicting real-time illustrations of sleep data as captured in the sleep laboratory and the scoring of recording data. Information regarding common montages, artifacts, and troubleshooting in the sleep laboratory will facilitate the reader’s journey as a trainee sleep technologist. While scoring sleep recordings, the "When you score the data" histogram can provide a great deal of useful information, and this has been explained in detail in this book. Most importantly, it is prudent to be able to write reports that are both informative and easy to understand by physicians who do not have advanced knowledge of sleep medicine. A chapter has been dedicated to explaining this in detail. Lastly, the authors have provided ready-made forms, questionnaires, and documents that can either be used as they are or with some modifications.

This up-to-date and comprehensive volume will be an invaluable guide for technicians and physicians who wish to practice sleep medicine and will be useful for sleep technology and physician training programs. The volume is intended to complement, not be a substitute for, the AASM scoring manual, as many areas that are covered in the manual are not covered here.