Sleep Disorders

Our goal is to help our visitors understand sleep problems, their impact and what can be done about them. This site is a guide for patients, families and friends, health professionals, employers and insurers.



Neurological illnesses can be especially unsettling, as these disorders can change our ability to act, speak, and even think how we once could. Find out the adult neurological diseases we diagnose and treat.


Addiction Medicine

Are you ready to go on with your life? We can help you to find your path to freedom from drugs and alcohol. Our services in clude detoxification, medication evaluation, dual diagnosis, and long term treatment.


Why should everyone learn about sleep and it's disorders?

Sleepiness can indicate a serious illness!

Sleepiness–whether due to sleep apnea, heavy snoring, idiopathic hypersomnia, narcolepsy, insomnia or other sleep-related disorders–threatens the health, lives and economic security of millions of Americans.

For example, sleep apnea (diagnosed in up to 10% of men over 40 as well as in women and children) has been associated with heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, hypertension, accelerated development of coronary artery disease, abnormal heart rhythms, convulsions, memory problems, slowed thinking, irritability, mood swings, depression and high speed highway crashes. In fact, a recent study supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that severe sleep apnea increased the risk of death in middle-aged adults by a startling 46%!

Insomnia is not a disease. Instead, it’s a label. It simply means that sleep is poor and not adequate, without saying why–and the cause sometimes is much more serious than the symptoms of insomnia. Insomnia complaints can even result from such serious problems as repeated failure to breathe, seizures and other disorders…and sleeping pills make some of these underlying causes worse. Skillful sleep tests can yield answers and solutions.


Abnormal events in sleep can be dangerous

Such frightening occurrences as violent behaviors and the acting out of dreams can reflect neurologic illnesses that can cause serious injuries if left untreated.

Arousals with distress–with such symptoms as chest pain, choking, wheezing, shortness of breath and headache can be caused by either primary sleep disorders or worsening of other health problems during sleep. Sleep studies clarify the causes of these frightening symptoms.

Serious sleep disorders can be treated. What you learn may be crucial to the well-being and security of your family and friends, your company and your personal health. Many patients have come to us from distant states and from other countries–in fact, from four continents for these breakthrough therapies. Important new treatments for sleep apnea and other breathing problems during sleep are now available at the Regional Neurology and Sleep Medicine Institute.


Central Sleep Apneas

Central Sleep Apneas are a major reason why so many patients with obstructive sleep cannot sleep with CPAP or bilevel PAP… and then abandon treatment.

Central Sleep Apneas also occur in 50% of heart failure patients and in many with atrial fibrillation. Central Apneas can accelerate deterioration of heart function and render heart failure untreatable.

Effective treatment for Central Sleep Apnea is available. Click Here


Sleep-related Hypoventilation

Sleep-related Hypoventilation involves failure to breathe deeply enough to maintain adequate blood oxygen levels. It also can result in a potentially dangerous buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood which can blunt the patient’s drive to breathe.

A new treatment for this problem was just introduced for patients with chronic lung disease (such as COPD), skeletal deformities that restrict breathing (such as kyphoscoliosis), weakness of muscles used for breathing (such as muscular dystrophies and post-polio syndrome) and severe obesity. The CCH Regional SDC has been the only area sleep center to offer this exciting new treatment.

We already have used this ingenious technology to eliminate the need for use of an oxygen concentrator with CPAP or bilevel PAP in a number of patients! If you have low oxygen levels during sleep and are frustrated by the drawbacks of oxygen therapy (inconvenience for travel and the noise and heat generated by the concentrator), this new therapy may be the answer for you! Click Here

Why Choose Us?

Advanced Treatment Capabilities

We were the first sleep center in this region to offer treatment with adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV), an extraordinary breakthrough for patients with both central and obstructive sleep apnea. These problems afflict half of patients with heart failure and can cause progressive worsening of heart function. Also, many sleep apnea patients develop repeated pauses in breathing when started on positive airway pressure (CPAP and bilevel PAP): a common reason why so many patients with sleep apnea abandon treatment. ASV is the answer! We regard ASV as the greatest single advance in sleep apnea therapy since the introduction of CPAP in the mid-1980s.