2024-04-23 05:30:01
“When the lights go out, the exam begins.” Magalie Cadoret is one of two sleep technicians at the Central Brittany Hospital Center (CHCB), in Noyal-Pontivy. Electrodes, saturation and breathing sensors, straps… The equipment can seem impressive. “Patients are fitted in the early followingnoon, they have time to get used to it before going to bed.” Patients who spend the whole night in the Noyala “sleep” unit, under the surveillance of infrared cameras.
The electrodes are the core of the sleep analysis unit. (GHCB)
This unit is one of the most important in terms of activity in Brittany: more than 1,500 investigations are carried out there each year. It has four equipped rooms and is located in the pulmonary-cardiology department at CHCB. Originally created within Loudéac Hospital, the unit really developed in 2012 with the construction of the Kério area, in Noyal-Pontivy.
Pathologies related to a number of specialties
Insomnia, sleep apnea, hypersomnia, narcolepsy, periodic leg movements, etc. are all pathologies investigated in the Noyal sleep unit. “Two-thirds of the patients are adults, one-third are children,” explains Dr Jean Barakat, one of the two doctors at the Noyales unit.
These can be referred by an otolaryngologist, for example as part of an assessment. Adults are informed by their attending physician, pulmonologists, cardiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, etc. “Sleep disorders can be diseases in themselves, but also symptoms of other pathologies.” Occupational physicians also have their role to play. “We carry out the mandatory sobriety tests required to work as road, bus or train drivers…”.
Different types of exams
At night, the patients are under the supervision of cardio-pneumo nurses. In the morning, the images and recordings from the various sensors are retrieved and analyzed by the team. This is polysomnography, “a complete, electrophysiological examination, which analyzes both the quantity and the quality of sleep”, emphasizes Maïté Junot, the other sleep technician in the Noyalaise unit. Lighter, respiratory polygraphy is performed on an outpatient basis; this represents two thirds of the activity of the service, which has another doctor, Dr Claire Quemener, who practices at CHCB once a week.
“Polysomnography is a comprehensive examination that analyzes both the quantity and quality of sleep.”
A real specialty
There are more and more patients. “The waiting time is six to eight months,” emphasizes Adélaïde Le Ruyet, head of health. On the one hand “due to the increase in obesity”, which generates a number of related pathologies; on the other hand, because “the general public and doctors are becoming more and better informed”, indicates Dr Jean Barakat.
The patients are equipped at the beginning of the followingnoon. They have time to get used to it before spending the night in the sleeping unit. (GHCB)
A practicing hospital pulmonologist since 2001 – then in Loudéac – it was in 2008 that Dr Barakat became interested in sleep disorders. He completed a university degree (DU) in adult sleep and another in children’s sleep. A DU that also holds the two technicians of the unit – originally one is a radio manipulator; the other, a nurse. Sleep is a real specialty.
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