Sleep medicine deals with the causes, diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. A sleep medicine physician treats problems such as sleep apnea and snoring, insomnia and narcolepsy. Sleep apnea is when a person actually stops breathing for a few seconds during sleep, and is usually accompanied by loud snoring. Narcolepsy is a disorder of the central nervous system, and is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, and a tendency to sleep at inappropriate times, even if the person gets adequate nighttime sleep. Also considered sleep disorders are periodic limb movements and restless legs.
Treatment includes overnight study in a sleep center, where technicians observe, monitor, and analyze brain activity, respiratory function, muscle function and other variables that help diagnose complex sleep disorders. Sometimes a physician may fit a patient may with a device to measure a person's activity, their environmental temperature, light levels and mood state, all recorded by a computer the size of wrist watch. This allows the physician to get objective, accurate data on the patient's daily life, and help to assess sleep problems.
Doctor density varies by specialty and location. The United States has 861 practicing sleep medicine doctors. Broken out by state, sleep medicine doctor density in Alabama is 12, in Alaska is 1, in Arizona is 18, in Arkansas is 8, in California is 78, in Colorado is 21, in Connecticut is 14, in Delaware is 4, in District of Columbia is 10, in Florida is 64, in Georgia is 38, in Hawaii is 5, in Idaho is 7, in Illinois is 43, in Indiana is 17, in Iowa is 11, in Kansas is 8, in Kentucky is 28, in Louisiana is 12, in Maryland is 17, in Massachusetts is 29, in Michigan is 38, in Minnesota is 22, in Mississippi is 7, in Missouri is 29, in Montana is 2, in Nebraska is 7, in Nevada is 4, in New Hampshire is 8, in New Jersey is 37, in New Mexico is 8, in New York is 69, in North Carolina is 39, in North Dakota is 2, in Ohio is 39, in Oklahoma is 12, in Oregon is 11, in Pennsylvania is 46, in Rhode Island is 2, in South Carolina is 19, in South Dakota is 2, in Tennessee is 36, in Texas is 94, in Utah is 10, in Vermont is 3, in Virginia is 26, in Washington is 30, in West Virginia is 9, and in Wisconsin is 15.
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