Sleep is one of the basic needs of humans - just like eating and drinking. Healthy sleep is an essential foundation of our physical and mental performance.
More and more people suffer from sleep disorders. Often sufferers complain of insomnia, poor sleep quality, daytime fatigue, daytime sleepiness, microsleep, tension, irritability, headache, fatigue or depression.
Occupational and private stress, grief, depression, snoring with and without respiratory failure, increased urination, cough, pain, muscle cramps or restless legs - there are many potential causes of non-recreational sleep.
Chronic sleep disorders affect well-being, health and quality of life. They are a risk factor for high blood pressure, heart disease, cardiac arrhythmia, stroke, diabetes mellitus, depression and dementia, but also for personal and other hazards due to work and traffic accidents.
Sleep medical care in Germany has long ceased to be in line with the international status of research and development in the field of digital medicine. We are far from exploiting the medical and economic benefits of digitization for comprehensive, high-quality and internationally competitive sleep medical care.
At the Institute of Digital Sleep Medicine, every patient with sleep disorders and non-recreational sleep can benefit from better diagnoses and more advanced treatments based on my expertise in sleep medicine, digitization, and telemedicine. Further advantages include shorter waiting times, telemedical (location-independent) accessibility and digital doctor-patient communication.
As a research-based sleep specialist and engineer, I have been making an internationally recognized contribution to the development of innovative digital prevention, diagnosis, and therapy procedures for people with sleep disorders for many years. These digital technologies improve the outcome of treatment and simplify the processes for patients and medical professionals. Furthermore, they optimize doctor-patient communication, which is essential for the treatment process.
The treatment of sleep disorders at the Institute of Digital Sleep Medicine takes place in three steps:
- Diagnostics
- Treatment
- Follow-up management
The more precise the diagnosis of the sleep disorder, the better the success of the treatment. The nature and extent of the necessary examinations and the digital techniques used will be individually agreed in a personal conversation between doctor and patient.
The typical procedure of diagnostics is as follows:
- Appointment
- Doctor-Patient-Consultation
- telemedical, in video consultation or
- personally, on site, at the Institute for Digital Medicine
- Evaluation of all preliminary findings
- Sleep-specific questionnaires for self-assessment
- digitally, on a computer or smartphone or
- analog on paper
- Vigilance / drowsiness tests
- Digital monitoring
- Complementary diagnostics
- Discussion of findings and treatment planning
- telemedical, in video consultation or
- personally, on site, at the Institute of Digital Sleep Medicine
The results of sleep diagnostics, the professional expertise of the sleep specialist and the treatment team as well as the use of the latest treatment strategies allow us to define a treatment plan that is as individual, flexible and precise as possible.
To offer patients the full range of medically researched and established therapies at the highest level, we are networked nationally and internationally with sleep medical experts from other branches of medicine (Respiratory Medicine, ENT, Neurology, Psychiatry, etc).
Specific treatment methods:
- Sleep hygiene
- Lifestyle change, fitness
- Nocturnal positive airway pressure (PAP)
PAP mode:
- CPAP: "Continuous PAP"
- APAP: "Automatic PAP"
- ASV: "Adaptive Servo-Ventilation"
- Mandibular Repositioning Devices
- Airway Stimulation (Hypoglossus Pacemaker)
- Long-term oxygen therapy
- Drugs
- Interdisciplinary methods
Follow-up examinations are an essential part of successful sleep medical treatment. This is real teamwork: the role of the patient is not just the centre of attention. He is also an important player in the treatment team. The benefit of follow-ups is particularly significant when the patient and all providers and physicians involved in the treatment work and communicate as active members of the team.
Many problems can already be identified during medical consultation and suitable solutions can be initiated. But not every persistent or new sleep disorder and not every treatment problem can be clarified by simple questioning and patient examination. With the help of digital medicine, also complex conditions can be detected quickly and accurately and often resolved with only little effort.
In addition, the necessary cooperation between the patient and all physicians and service providers involved in the treatment process is significantly improved. At the Institute for Digital Sleep Medicine, flexible follow-up scheduling is the rule. The ideal follow-up interval depends on the current symptoms and findings of the digital and telemedical monitoring. The following methods are available:
- Video consultation with certified software
- Software and hardware from our own development
- Sleep Profile: Apps from SleepScore Labs™
- Tele management for high-quality PAP therapy:
- Latest developments for home sleep diagnostics
