Insomnia: Exams And Tests

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Exams and Tests

Insomnia is not a disease, and no specific test can diagnose it. Your health professional may want to do blood tests to rule out certain medical conditions such as thyroid problems. "Normal sleep" differs for each individual. Since poor-quality sleep often is related to an underlying cause, an evaluation of your health and sleep history is an important first step. Talk with your doctor about your medical history and any current medical problems or medications you are taking.

• Your doctor can learn a lot about your insomnia and its causes by assessing your sleep history.
• You may be asked to keep a sleep diary for 1 or 2 weeks to document your sleep patterns and related lifestyle factors. See an example of a sleep diary (What is a PDF document?).
• If your symptoms point to mental health concerns, such as depression or anxiety, you may be referred for an assessment by a mental health professional.

If your doctor evaluates your present condition, health, and sleep history and suspects that you may be suffering from certain sleep disorders, you may be referred for a clinical sleep study (polysomnography), in which you sleep overnight in a laboratory. This type of study is sometimes used to assess breathing-related sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea.

It can be difficult to assess chronic insomnia with a clinical sleep study, because there are often no concrete features of poor-quality sleep that can be measured. Further, insomnia is often specific to your lifestyle and environment, which would not be duplicated in a lab setting. Still, a clinical sleep study may be useful in ruling out certain causes of your insomnia or if the diagnosis is uncertain and behavioral or medication therapy is not working.^{9, 10, 11}

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Last updated:	February 02, 2006
Author:	Merrill Hayden
Reviewed By:	Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine, Malin K. Clark, MD, FRCPC - Psychiatry
Editors:	Susan Van Houten, RN, BSN, MBA, Michele Cronen