title: Ambulatory cassette polysomnography: findings from a large cohort of drug-free insomnia patients.
abstract: Technology for conducting ambulatory polysomnography (APSG) has been available for more than a decade, but relatively few studies have used this technology to study the sleep of subjects in their usual home sleeping environments. Herein we suggest the usefulness of this technology for the study of normal sleepers and insomniacs, and we report our APSG findings with a large cohort (n = 117) of drug-free insomnia outpatients. All patients completed a sleep-history questionnaire, a clinical interview with a sleep-disorders clinician, and one night of APSG in their homes. Most sleep parameters derived were consistent with previously reported laboratory PSG findings for insomniacs, except that values of rapid-eye-movement sleep latencies were generally shorter than typically found in laboratory studies. Moreover, results showed that APSG served to differentiate major age groups and diagnostic subtypes within our larger sample, and patient tolerance for APSG was within acceptable limits. We conclude that APSG is a useful technique for evaluating insomnia complaints.
authors.affiliation: VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Edinger
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Erwin
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Fins
authors.forename: G R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Marsh
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Krystal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation*; D017286:Polysomnography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology; D012895:Sleep, REM / Q000502:physiology