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Posted by sleepyrick on March 22, 1998 at 14:45:49:In Reply to: Movement Arousal Index posted by Mark Biegert on March 21, 1998 at 14:41:32:
From a Registered Sleep Technologist:
AROUSAL:a change in the brain EEG activity from sleep to awake lasting at least three seconds.
In sleep studies we categorize arousals into "caused by" categories. Standard categories include "Apnea/Hypopnea" or "Respiratory", "movement", "spontaneous", "reflux" (gastroesophageal reflux), and "other".
Reports will generally include most of these categories, and may include others depending on the type of monitoring sensors used in the sleep study. Obviously, unless reflux sensors are used, that category cannot be included, etc.
An "index" is the number of these events divided by the total number of hours of sleep. If you had 30 movement arousals in 5 hour of sleep, your index would be 30/5 = 6. As for arousals of ANY type, the fewer the better!!!!
In combining indices, they are trying to represent the TOTAL AMOUNT OF SLEEP DISTURBANCE. The "arousals" may only be three seconds long, but if there are enough of them, you won't get any rest. You WILL NOT BE AWARE OF AROUSALS WHICH ARE SO SHORT. BUT BE ASSURED THEY DO DISRUPT YOUR SLEEP AND MORE IMPORTANTLY YOUR REST.
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