St. Peter opens new center to test for sleep disorders

Clinic most commonly checks patients for apnea

By Keri Brenner | The Olympian • Published June 09, 2008

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Patients arrive between 6:30 and 8 p.m. After getting their bedrooms arranged, they have wire sensors for electrical impulses pasted on their heads, with other monitors strapped on their waists and chests. After several hours of watching TV, working on their computers or otherwise relaxing, the patients go to sleep.

About 11 p.m., the technicians, sitting in a central control room at a bank of computer monitors, begin checking the patients' brains' electrical impulses, signalling what stage of sleep the person is in. Other monitors also check blood pressure and oxygen levels.

At some point, technicians wake the patients and put a mask on their faces. The mask is called a continuous positive airway pressure unit. If the CPAP helps to keep the airways open and prevent the patient from waking up, then the patient is a good candidate to take home a CPAP unit to use indefinitely to relieve the apnea.

At the same time, patients are advised to make lifestyle changes to cure apnea, such as losing weight or eliminating prescription narcotic pain pills.

The sleep center, the largest such facility in South Sound according to Brottem, also tests for narcolepsy — a neurological disorder that affects the control of sleep and wakefulness — and restless leg syndrome. Other testing involves several types of insomnia — such as inability to fall asleep or trouble staying asleep.

"There's a lot more understanding these days about the importance of getting good-quality sleep," Brottem said. "Still, today, people today go in to a doctor and say they're having trouble sleeping, and they get a sleeping pill."

Brottem said he doesn't prescribe sleeping pills. His treatment ranges from giving advice on sleep-promoting lifestyle changes to testing for apnea and, if needed, the CPAP.

The St. Peter center, formerly in a small basement area in another building, in 1992 became the second sleep facility to be accredited in Washington. With the recent addition of three new technicians, it employs 13 staff members, not including Brottem or colleagues Dr. Jerry Hermanson and Dr. Robert Huck.

Elsewhere in South Sound, Capital Medical Center, on Olympia's west side, discontinued its sleep laboratory several years ago. However, the hospital is home for private practices for several respiratory specialists — or pulmonologists — who are trained in treating sleep disorders, Capital Medical Center spokeswoman Renee Crotty said.

Dr. Joel Black and Dr. Austin Lampert have their offices in a medical office building on the hospital campus, Crotty said.

Keri Brenner writes for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5435 or kbrenner@theolympian.com.