12 Bringing healthcare news to your home Good sleep is important for your health. In fact, you can’t live without it. “It’s one of your body’s basic functions,” noted Nathan Fuerhoff, director of the Sleep Lab at Columbus Community Hospital. “Your body needs sleep to run properly.” But essential, restful slumber may not be possible if you have a sleep disorder. What’s more, such a malady could even hurt your health. For example, take obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing stops many times during sleep. Untreated sleep apnea can leave you exhausted, accident-prone and less productive. It also may lead to other serious health conditions, like heart problems. To find out if you have a sleep disorder (see the sidebar on the facing page for warning signs), your doctor might recommend a sleep study, also known as a polysomnogram. Columbus Community Hospital’s Sleep Lab can help you with that. CCH performs studies that help doctors diagnose conditions such as sleep apnea, insomnia, narcolepsy and sleep-related movement disorders. Testing in the lab or at home CCH offers sleep study options both in the lab and at home. A lab specialist can help you decide which option is the best choice. In-lab sleep study. For an overnight sleep study, you will What to expect during a sleep study Inside the Sleep
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