Editing Polysomnography (section)

==Procedure==
[[Image:Pediatric polysomnogram.jpg|thumb|225px|left|Pediatric polysomnography patient]]
[[Image:Polysmonograpy equipped patient.jpg|thumb|180px|right|Adult patient, equipped for ambulatory diagnosis]]
For the standard test, the patient comes to a sleep lab in the early evening and over the next 1–2 hours is introduced to the setting and "wired up" so that multiple channels of data can be recorded when they fall asleep. The sleep lab may be in a hospital, a free-standing medical office, or a hotel. A sleep technician should always be in attendance and is responsible for attaching the electrodes to the patient and monitoring the patient during the study.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

During the study, the technician observes sleep activity by looking at the video monitor and the computer screen that displays all the data second by second. In most labs, the test is completed and the patient is discharged home by 7 a.m. unless a [[Multiple Sleep Latency Test]] (MSLT) is to be done during the day to test for [[excessive daytime sleepiness]].

Most recently, health care providers may prescribe home studies to enhance patient comfort and reduce expense. The patient is given instructions after a screening tool is used, uses the equipment at home and returns it the next day.  Most screening tools consist of an airflow measuring device (thermistor) and a blood oxygen monitoring device (pulse oximeter). The patient would sleep with the screening device for one to several days, then return the device to the health care provider. The provider would retrieve data from the device and could make assumptions based on the information given. For example, series of drastic blood oxygen desaturations during night periods may indicate some form of respiratory event (apnea). The equipment monitors, at a minimum, oxygen saturation. More sophisticated home study devices have most of the monitoring capability of their counterparts run by sleep lab technicians, and can be complex and time-consuming to set up for self-monitoring.{{citation needed|date=February 2013}}