Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Sleep Technology: Endorsed by the American Association of Sleep Technologists (AAST)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This textbook is very informative and pertinent to students and professionals alike who are involved in sleep medicine. The content makes sense and is not overburdened with scientific jargon. Thus, it gives a straightforward and detailed overview of what sleep technology is about today.

Very technologist-oriented book that gives a good background of the science behind polysomnography. Neurophysiology sections are written in a somewhat disorganzied fashion but this is not uncommon in polysomnography texts available on the market. A good neurophysiology reference while digesting this book's sections on the same would be recommended.

Needs to be updated with the 2008 AASM scoring guidelines but otherwise a great book that should be in the library of technologists / respiratory therapists involved with polysomnography or sleep medicine.

I look forward to a next edition with updated 2008 AASM guidelines!!!

This is a good text. It was the only book I used to help me pass the BRPT boards.

This is actually a great book, and in my humble opinion better than Principles of Polysomnography. I will agree with other reviewers that the text is dated so far as the 2008 AASM scoring guidelines are not included due to publication date. It lists old R and K classification.

The main changes in sleep scoring in the 2007 AASM manual include the following:

*The addition of a frontal EEG derivation in addition to the central and occipital leads commonly used: The R and K classification required that the central lead always be used if only 1 derivation was possible.
*Changing the sleep stages to stage W (wake), stages N1-N3 (non-REM), and stage R (REM) from the previously described R and K stages of wakefulness, 1-4, and REM: The change in abbreviations is to avoid confusion between the 2 classification systems. Stage 3 and 4 in the old R and K rules were abbreviated to stage N3 in the new rules, as no physiologic or clinical basis exists for a difference between stages 3 and 4.

I do find minor flaws with the disorganization of information with respect to key components of chapters that I felt should be fleshed out entirely separate from the chapter material, but again as others have said this is not uncommon with other texts in Sleep Medicine due to our field being multi-disciplinary in nature.

I will say the text does a great job at quickly synthesizing materials from books like Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, 4th Edition (Principles & Practice of Sleep Medicine) and Principles and Practice of Pediatric Sleep Medicine. The text does an excellent job at providing the reader with the "meat" of the issue. I think Nic Butkov does add some great use of everyday real world tech issues when he supplies editorial notes in some sections.

Also very important note to be clear about, this text is not like: Essentials of Polysomnography: A Training Guide and Reference for Sleep Technicians or Principles of Polysomnography in so far as it DOES NOT contain any practice exam questions.

Next edition should be better if there is one. If you're taking your BRPT boards soon, this is a great primary text to use.

At times very difficult to read and understand but thankfully out teacher translates for us.

If you're accustomed to using collegiate level science text books, this text is likely to disappoint. The quality of information contained within is suitable to the subject matter; however information that naturally lends itself to supportive organization is instead presented in unbroken, didactic content blocks. For ex, cardiac functioning and the cardiac cycle is typically broken down into concise 5 - 6 specific phases in most texts, illustrated to aid comprehension. This text instead presents the information in an unbroken 1000 word paragraph with little insight into sequence and phase delineation. It offers no guiding illustrations.

Because this text is developed by the AAST which governs and accredits sleep medicine professionals, students are essentially captive to this (literally & figuratively) colorless text. However, there are several excellent general purpose college level text such as Martini's excellent Anatomy & Physiology that can serve as supplemental resources to aid the student of Polysomnography. During the next major revision edition, the authors would do well to add a nurse and/or writer to fill in significant missing content.