Prof. Dr. med. Ingo Fietze

Sleep disorders are one of the most common medical problems and have been on the increase for years. They can be caused by external or organic factors and sometimes affect the patient's performance for a short time, sometimes over a longer period of time.

First and foremost is insomnia, difficulty in falling asleep and/or sleeping through, followed by nocturnal respiratory disorders and restless legs during sleep to circadian wake-sleep rhythm disturbances (e.g. shift worker syndrome), parasomnias (e.g. sleepwalking) and hypersomnia (e.g. narcolepsy).

Sleep doctors can decide on the basis of anamnesis, special questionnaires and, if necessary, a domestic measurement of sleep, activity or breathing, whether those affected need further diagnosis. If necessary, sleep disorders can be examined more closely in the sleep laboratory, where the patient is usually connected to polysomnography devices for two nights and body signals such as brain waves, heart rate, breathing movements in the heart and abdomen, muscle tension, eye movements, air flow and oxygen saturation in the blood are measured.