Dr. William D.'s Posts

How Common are Sleep Disorders? by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Very much more common than most people realize is the best answer to this question. The national prevalence has been established for only one specific disorder, obstructive sl ... Read on »

National Coverage Determination for Obstructive Sleep Apnea by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine This is an excerpt from a letter written by the President of SleepQuest to the Director of Coverage and Analysis Group Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesMy name is Rob ... Read on »

Healthy Sleep: The Final Frontier by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Imagine that a medical condition of epidemic proportion is killing thousands of people every year. Imagine that death is preceded by a long period of disability. Imagine that ... Read on »

Medicare Approves In Home Sleep Apnea Testing by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) have, as of March 2008, approved at-home sleep testing for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Previous policy had mandated tha ... Read on »

Consequence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine It has been estimated that 50,000 premature and preventable deaths may occur each year as a consequence of obstructive sleep apnea. The most common terminal events are heart a ... Read on »

Sleep Need and Sleep Debt by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Each individual has a specific daily sleep requirement. This is the amount of sleep that must be obtained each day on the average to avoid becoming sleep deprived. If the need ... Read on »

The True Nature of Sleep by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Sleep is not rest for the brain. If you think we sleep to rest the brain, then it would be appropriate to say the brain never sleeps. The one absolutely defining difference be ... Read on »

What is the Biological Clock? by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The biological clock is a term applied to the brain process which causes us to have 24-hour fluctuations in body temperature, hormone secretion, and a host of other bodily act ... Read on »

Clock-Dependent Alerting (CDA) by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The major role of the biological clock in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness is to provide an internal and very powerful wake-up signal to the rest of the brain. We call ... Read on »

Sleep is regulated homeostatically by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine This means that if you get less sleep than you need, the tendency to fall asleep in the daytime will become progressively stronger; if you get more sleep than you need, the te ... Read on »

Factors Which ?Unmask? the Sleep Debt by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Most people think that a heavy meal, a warm room, a comfortable bed, a boring lecture, an alcoholic beverage will cause sleepiness. None of these things cause sleepiness. Rath ... Read on »

Drowsiness by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The onset of drowsiness is the moment when staying awake requires a conscious effort, usually an effort to keep the eyes open. This moment is the last step in falling asleep, ... Read on »

Drowsiness is Red Alert! by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine If we are paying attention, most of us know when we are about to fall asleep. We know because we feel “drowsy.” Most of us associate “drowsiness” with heavy eyelids, difficult ... Read on »

Can We Build Up a Sleep Debt Indefinitely? by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine The longest laboratory study of restricted sleep (to 4 hours per day) is 14 consecutive days. In this study, the impairment and fatigue of the subjects was continuing to incre ... Read on »

We Are Not Healthy Unless Our Sleep Is Healthy by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine We have learned that we can have a health problem during our sleep which may not be apparent to us when we are awake. Therefore, unless we know our sleep is healthy, we cannot ... Read on »

Sleep disorders: General definitions and classifications by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Sleep disorders are illnesses and disturbances of sleep and wakefulness that are caused by abnormalities existing only during sleep or abnormalities of specific sleep mechanis ... Read on »

America is a Sleepy Society by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine How many Americans are seriously or dangerously sleep deprived? There is no doubt whatsoever that vast numbers of us in school, in the workplace, in the transportation industr ... Read on »

All Wakefulness is Sleep Deprivation by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Regardless of how we feel when we are awake — tired, elated, energetic, apathetic, interested, bored, all wakefulness is sleep deprivation. Some people think that the ordinary ... Read on »

Sleep Debt Makes a Sedative a Sedative by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine Under laboratory conditions, when the sleep debt of laboratory animals is lowered to zero, or very close to zero, such animals can be given enormous doses of conventional slee ... Read on »

Can We Get Too Much Sleep? by Dr. William D. Medical Doctor

Posted in: Blog Posts in General Medicine There is a fairly common experience of feeling lousy or groggy after an unusually long sleep. To conclude that this is due to “too much sleep” is wrong. Sleep is not the culpr ... Read on »

Dr. William D.

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