The Specialist inaugurates the new expansion of the Sleep Disorders Laboratory. Books - Muhammad Al-Haidar: Dr. Qasim Al-Qasabi, Executive General Supervisor of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, inaugurated yesterday, Monday, the new expansion of the Sleep Disorders Laboratory, with the aim of raising the laboratory''s capacity to conduct about 700 studies annually. Dr. Saleh Al-Damas, consultant chest diseases and head of the sleep disorders unit, stated that the new expansion will reduce the waiting time for patients to conduct the study in the future to less than a month, after it was extended to about a year and a half, and with this expansion, the Specialist Hospital will be one of the largest Saudi medical centers in this field of In terms of the number of sleep studies, pointing out that about 1200 studies have been conducted in various Saudi medical centers so far, of which 400 have been conducted in the Specialty Hospital since the establishment of the laboratory in 2000. He pointed out that the hospital aims in the future to increase the number of beds and the number of technicians working in the laboratory to accommodate the increasing numbers of patients referred to the hospital from various regions of the Kingdom due to the relatively high level of awareness of the importance of treating these disorders. He added that the laboratory has advanced technologies that include modern devices that are linked to the patient during sleep through sensors for electrocardiograms and electroencephalography, measuring the activity of the muscles of the eyes, legs, chest and abdomen, measuring the amount of oxygen, in addition to a digital (microphone) to record the sound of snoring, explaining that all these results are transformed. To a central computer to analyze and display them in the form of graphs that help to identify the disturbance that the patient suffers from during sleep.
Dr. Al-Damas explained that studies estimate that more than a million Saudis suffer from sleep apnea, which is a disease that affects different age groups, especially those with overweight, and international studies have proven that 30% of people develop insomnia at some stage of their lives, adding that sleep disorders also include In many cases such as compulsive sleep, hypersomnia, contraction of the muscles of the legs during sleep, restless legs before bedtime and others, indicating that all of these cases can be treated either medication or surgically or by using some therapeutic devices.
He stressed the importance of the medical history routinely including questions related to the nature of sleep, and referring the patient to a specialized center if there are any symptoms or signs of sleep disorders in order to treat him.
