Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 10/17/07 Section: Lifeline

Media Credit: Neil Blak Sweet Dreams technician Sheila Kile instructs Troy junior and Central Michigan Life senior reporter Brian McLean how to adjust the bed's settings. The bed adjusts for head and foot comfort and has a massager to ease patients in to sleep. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Neil Blake Sweet Dreams technician Kattrina Kile marks and place electrodes on McLean's head to measure eye and jaw movement, among other things. At one point, McLean had nearly 23 attached wires. [Click to enlarge]

Pleasant Dreams Sleep Center looks more like a hotel room than a laboratory.

In both of the clinic's two laboratories, participants can find a television, plush memory foam mattresses with built-in massagers, artwork and a Gideon's bible.

Pleasant Dreams, which serves around six to eight patients a week, is one of about 60 sleep laboratories in Michigan. It is located at 1205 S. Mission St.

"(Sleep laboratories are) getting less rare," said Sheila Kile, clinical coordinator at Pleasant Dreams.

Kile said most major cities have one or more sleep labs. In fact, Pleasant Dreams is one of two labs in Mount Pleasant. The other is on CMU's campus.

Sleep clinics have sprung up more often as sleep disorders across the country have risen.

Kile said in the past 10 years, the number of people suffering from sleep disorders has doubled.

Today, 8 percent of men and 2 percent of women suffer from some sort of sleep disorder, Kile said. A visit to Pleasant Dreams is covered by most health insurance plans, she said.

At Pleasant Dreams, which has been open for about a year and a half, Kile and others test for 26 different sleep disorders.

One of the most common disorders at the center is obstructive sleep apnea, which is the only disorder the clinic can treat. For all other disorders, the clinic can refer patients to other doctors who can prescribe medication or other treatment.

In OSA, the patient's airways are blocked while they sleep, leading not only to snoring but posing a health hazard. In patients suffering from OSA, the brain briefly interrupts their sleep, sometimes interfering with their rest.

One of the early warning signs of OSA is snoring, Kile said.

"If your roommate is snoring a lot, they might want to get checked out for sleep apnea," she said

Patients at the clinic who come in complaining of sleep problems actually spend the night at the clinic. Kile said most patients arrive at 8:30 p.m. and leave at 6 a.m.

Kattrina Kile, who works as polysomnographic technician at Pleasant Dreams, is one of several technicians who stays up all night monitoring patients.

Kattrina Kile said working at the lab with her mother, Sheila, doesn't cause sleep problems of her own.

"I sleep all day long," Kattrina Kile said.

While working, it is her job to monitor everything from a patient's heart rate to their leg movement.

"I listen to them snoring," she said.

Sheila Kile, who has worked at Pleasant Dreams since it opened, has been working in sleep studies for about six years.

She said most patients are able to get better shortly after leaving the center.

"Within a couple weeks of meeting us, they're feeling great and ready to go," Sheila Kile said.


lifeline@cm-life.com

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