"Sleep is the best meditation."

- Dalai Lama

 

Sleep Medicine is a relatively new branch of medicine all over the world. Its history as a separate specialty of medical science dates back only 30-40 years, even though the descriptions of various sleep disorders is available in numerous works of art, literature and scientific journals dating back centuries. 

 

Recently, awareness have been generated about the importance of sleep among general population through various print and electronic media, conferences and workshops all over the country. However, unfortunately, there is a lack of seriousness in this subject and lack of comprehensive evaluation and treatment at present in our country.

 

This primarily arises from the shortage of training fellowships in sleep medicine as a Superspeciality subject in the country and hence, most work is being done by specialists from different disciplines having interest and experience in the subtopics of sleep medicine allied to their own area of expertise. Though something is better than nothing, this sometimes lead to an inadequate treatment of the patient as he/ she may have more than one primary sleep disorder, some of which may be outside the domain of the treating specialist/ expert’s specialty which thus remain undiagnosed/ untreated.

Moreover, the increased focus on certain sleep disorders like sleep apnea has resulted in neglect of other more pervasive and prevalent disorders like insomnia/movement disorders/ circadian rhythm sleep disorders/ Parasomnias etc.

 

Thirdly, there is a severe lack of appropriate and approved diagnostic equipment for thorough evaluation of various sleep disorders. Most (>95%) of the sleep test machines used in the country are underpowered (<25 channels) capable of diagnosing only one or two specific sleep disorders, thereby missing out on the very valuable data on other probable sleep disorders, thus providing incorrect/ inadequate diagnosis and hence inadequate treatment. Many of the tests are conducted by technicians untrained in lead placements leading to faulty data collection and data auto scoring is done which often leads to incorrect and or inadequate results (as in computer language: garbage in- garbage out). To make matters worse, some elements are providing 2-4 channel home sleep testing at throwaway/ minimal costs to lure potentially unaware patients and proving treatment on the basis of its results. In reality, these particular machines are not even capable of diagnosing any sleep disorder and the entire money given for the test (however small may be the amount) goes waste.

All these lead to dissatisfaction and confusion among patients who feel they have not improved enough even after quite expensive diagnosis and treatment protocols.

 

“Somnos Sleep Clinic- Kolkata” has been conceptualized in this background as an elite but affordable institution for providing comprehensive sleep solutions to numerous patients deprived of a healthy night’s sleep due to various sleep disorders. The comprehensive and holistic treatment is provided by Sleep physician super-specializing in the field of sleep medicine and is an internationally certified sleep medicine specialist by the World Sleep Federation. The sleep test machine used in the center is 56 channel hi tech advanced PSG machine with HQ infrared camera capable of diagnosing the entire spectrum of sleep disorders. Moreover, the data thus obtained is scored manually as per recommendations and guidelines by the American Association of Sleep Medicine 2017 guidelines. Treatment of allied subjects which are often coexistent with sleep disorders, like substance abuse/ addiction, psychiatric disorders, etc. are also provided as per latest guidelines and recommendations to give a holistic solution to the patient’s problems. We provide individualized treatment tailored to the patients need and background as we firmly believe that there is nothing like “one size fits all” in the field of sleep medicine.

 

The “Somnos Sleep Clinic- Kolkata” has also been conceptualized as a research centre in the field of sleep medicine, whereby collaborative research work in conjunction with other renowned sleep centres of the country is pursued to generate data and discoveries in the still evolving field of this super specialty branch of medicine.