Customer Reviews

Sleep Medicine: Essentials and Review

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great "must have" book which consolidates all the facts needed by an aspiring Sleep Medicine physician for clinical practice and for study. All the facts in this book has more than 85% of the information needed to study for the Sleep Medicine Exam! The text and study charts are easy to read and memorize. The 500 test questions with answers become great practice. What a bargain priced book! This book saved me time making notes...helping me pass the Sleep Medicine boards!

Excellent review, with lots of questions and detailed answers in the back. Excellent value - probably the best bang for the buck available for sleep medicine.

I purchased this book for the purpose of studying for the ABIM sleep boards. I mainly purchased it because of the large number of review questions (600). Unfortunately, the questions aren't very good. Not a single question involves interpretation of PSG data! Hard to believe, but true. A large number of questions concern the question of which psych med causes REM reduction, delta sleep reduction, etc. Very dry stuff. I'm working through the questions anyway, but I found the questions in the ACCP SEEK (sleep) book to be much more reflective of the kinds of questions I think will be asked on the board exam (I took and passed the ABSM exam several years ago so I kind of know what to expect, I think).

used this to prepare for 2009 boards. does not add much to board review book from ACCP and much more cumbersome. Good book to go to sleep to though...

while I didn't like the format of the book itself, I believe the 600 questions are excellent for board review purposes.

I highly reccomend this book. Are you a sleep lab tech? This has alot of information with many pages of outlined information. It also contains the new scoring rules!!!! Some information is higher level for doctors but easy to read. You just learn a bit more than what is required to pass the RPSGT Exam. Other reading I also reccomend Essentials of Polysomnography by William H. Spriggs. This also has the new scoring rules. Along with Sleep Medicine Pearls by Richard B. Berry. This does not have the new scoring rules. And purchase Fundamentals of Sleep Technology by Nic Butkov and Teofilo Lee-Chiong. This does not have the new scoring rules. If you can get your hands on these four books you should pass the RPSGT Exam. Good Luck!
ia

It's a kind of memento for students before an exam. Essentiel things not to be fogotten. Nothing is explained and you can't learn anything.

In a Nutshell

Sleep Medicine: Essentials and Reviews is certainly a great overview on sleep and sleeping disorders, filled with information about diagnosis, the symptoms, and the treatment of the disorders. Though my focus was on how sleep disorders were diagnosed, I feel that they explained sleep disorders quite well by discussing the demographics, the causes, the pathophysiology, the variants of the sleep disorder, and the diagnosing of the disorder. On top of that, the book also provides a whole slew of references for every subsection of the chapter, making further research much easier to perform. Of course, a good number of the references refer to other books that Teofilo Lee-Chiong, Jr has written, but I still find the references useful.

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Organization and Formatting

I adore the formatting of the book, even though I find that there are no images in the book whatsoever. Graphs, figures, and tables are set off from the rest of the text by a gray shade while the text itself is a comfortable 11-font. Headings and subheadings are differentiated from the rest of the text by a larger font, and the subheadings are indented along with the regular text to make the distinction between heading and subheading clearer.

Each chapter starts with an overview of what will be in it. When it comes to sleeping disorders (Chapters 3-8), the following will be posted in this order (though not all elements may be in the sleeping disorder): the disease name, definition and clinical features, demographics, consequences, and classification. Other elements that can be included are the pathophysiology, causes, and the variants of the disease. The variants of the sleep disorder contain these elements within the subject: definition, clinical features, demographics, and evaluation. Finally, the references used for each section are at the end of the chapter.

However, my major problem with the book is that all of the questions were in the back of the book as one huge disorganized clump. Though there were around 600 questions with their answers provided, I feel that the book would be more effective as a review/study material if each chapter had its own set of questions at the end which would help reinforce the knowledge gained from reading the chapter.

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Synopsis


My purpose for finding the book was to study on somnology, the clinical study and treatment of sleep disorders. Therefore, my focus were particularly on the entireity of Chapter 2, Evaluation of Sleep, and Sleep Disorders, and the diagnosis and treatments presented in Chapters 3 - 12 which focused on specific sleep disorders such as insomnia, excess sleepiness, circadian rhythm disorders, and sleep changes that presents itself in neurological and other medical disorders. However, the ease of reading the book made me more receptive of learning much more about the disease themselves such as the insomnia, excessive sleepiness, and behavioral disorders sections. Though my focus was on chapter 2, I felt it would help my understanding of the subject if I also read Chapter One thoroughly as well.

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Chapter One Overview

The first chapter was an overview on sleep itself called The Basic Science of Sleep which provides a timeline of sleep medicine, starting from 1818 to 1999. The book provides a behavioral definition of sleep, separating the human existence into three distinct states: wakefulness, non-rapid eye movement sleep, and rapid eye movement sleep. The book provides an extremely useful chart which has all the stages of sleep (1-5), wakefulness, and REM sleep and what is shown by an EEG, EOG, and EMG when run. For example, during the wakefulness stage, the book states that an EEG will present "low-voltage, high-frequency activity when a person is alert and eyes are open" (Lee-Chiong 7).
Furthermore, the book also delves in the neuroanatomy of each of the sleep states and also covers the functions of the neurotransmitter in sleep-wake regulation. Afterwards, the basic sciences chapter delves into the physiology of sleep, discussing the various organ systems such as renal and endocrine in reference to sleep. Finally, the book enters into the stages of sleep deprivation and the consequences in the physiological systems.

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Chapter Two Overview

For my research, this chapter provided a goldmine of information for the diagnosis of sleep disorders and irregularities. The chapter starts with sleep history before entering into the manifestations of sleep disorders such as insomnia, aggressive behavior during sleep, nocturnal pain, etc. Afterwards, the book enters into the diagnostic tools used, starting with sleep diaries and questionaires. There were three scales provided: Epworth, Stanford, and Visual Analog Scale with the former two having a scale provided. Afterwards, the book provides the various physiological measuring devices used by a polysomnograph such as a pulse oximetry, EEG, and pulse transit time.

Furthermore, the book provides an overview in performing a polysomnography, preparing the patient for the sleep study, and when it is indicated.

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Chapters Three to End

Chapters 3 to 8 discuss various sleep disorders such as insomnia and excessive sleepiness. The formatting of these sections generally follows the formatting presented earlier in this review. Chapters 9-11 discusses sleep irregularities caused by medical, neurological, and psychiatric disorders. Finally, chapter 12 discusses miscellaneous sleep disorders that do not fit with the ones presented in chapters 3-8. Finally, the book discusses in chapter 13-15 about sleep in infants, older adults, and womens. Chapter 16, afterwards, discusses medications and their effects on sleep which covers almost everything about sleep.
After the appendixes, the book concludes with a large set of six hundred questions.

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Recommendation

Though the subject matter is interesting, I find that the book, despite its useful charts and graphs, is very dry. However, I feel that is a given since the book was made to be a review and not for entertainment value. If you are reviewing for a test in somnology or general sleep, I would highly recommend this book. On top of that, this book would also be excellent as a source of references if you are researching a particular subject because every section has references associated with them.
The questions, I feel, are poorly placed in the book; however, it would serve as a very useful `final exam' to help determine one's weaknesses in the subject before a test. I think that this book would

This book is a really good resource for anyone preparing to sit for the sleep boards. The subject matter is discussed clearly, and the 600 multiple choice questions at the end are very representative of those on the exam itself. Highly recommended.