For many people suspected of suffering from the sleep disorder sleep apnea, spending the night in a sleep laboratory is inevitable. Wearing electronic monitoring devices while lying in bed at the lab, patients are asked to enjoy a normal night's rest as their sleep pattern is monitored for irregularities.

Progressive Medical, a Carlsbad-based respiratory company, is among several businesses helping to change the diagnosis process for sleep apnea from a trip to the laboratory to an easy slumber at the patient's own home.

Sleep apnea, a common disorder, is a condition in which a person fails to breathe during sleep. Causes of the disorder range from body deformities to lapses in the brain's signal to breathe, and result in the body going into distress in an attempt to get air. Symptoms of sleep apnea include snoring, irritability and depression, and daytime sleepiness.

Laboratory tests for the disorder are often uncomfortable, and some patients find it hard to sleep normally in the laboratory.

"People come into the sleep lab and they don't sleep very well because of the novelty of the environment," said Dr. Bradley Schnierow, medical director of San Diego Sleep Medicine and assistant clinical professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. "You glue wires to people's heads, you attach electrodes to people's scalps, we put a little belt on their chest and their abdomen … and with all of those things glued to you, we say, 'OK, go to sleep.'"

In 2006, Progressive Medical introduced in Southern California a self-contained screening device for sleep disorders, the Watch Pat 100. Produced by Itamar Medical, a medical technology company based in Israel, the Watch Pat 100 allows patients to be tested for sleep apnea at their homes, in their beds.

Patients take the device home and sleep with it on their wrists as it records their sleep patterns. They then return it to Progressive Medical for assessment and diagnosis. Other similar devices work along the same lines.

The Watch Pat 100 uses a noninvasive finger probe and measures the tone of the body's peripheral arteries, which indicates respiratory events while asleep such as stopping breathing. The device also measures pulse rate, movement, and sleep and wake states, all of which can signify a sleep disorder.

"The Watch Pat as a piece of technology has got a lot of good features. (It is) more sensitive at picking up sleep apnea than the traditional study," Schnierow said.

Traditional laboratory tests screen for irregular breaths by measuring a decrease in airflow through the mouth or nose. However, the lab's measurement is not sensitive to more subtle changes in the body that accompany an irregular breathing cycle, changes that the Watch Pat can pick up on, Schnierow said.

For Diane O'Grady of Oceanside, using the device instead of a laboratory sleep test to screen for sleep apnea made sense.

"I was more comfortable because I was in my own bed, my own room," O'Grady said. "It was really easy to use. You just wear it overnight."

After years of feeling tired and depressed, she said, she spent one night with the Watch Pat 100 and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. According to the test, she had been waking up 30 times an hour and stopped breathing 18 times per hour in an average night.

Since her diagnosis, O'Grady was fitted for a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine, a device worn on the face at night to provide constant airflow when she is sleeping. This ensures that her breathing does not stop and allows O'Grady a full night's sleep.

"I wake up in the morning … just really happy," she said.

Although there are an estimated 70 million undiagnosed sleep apnea cases in the United States, the number of sleep laboratories is not sufficient to test each person, Progressive Medical manager Melanie Arledge said.

Using the Watch Pat 100 or similar at-home devices can take pressure off the labs, which often have a waiting list of one month or more.

Because the Watch Pat 100 is self-sufficient, it is less expensive to use than the laboratory test that requires a lab technician's presence to monitor sleep, Arledge said.

"I think the big questions is how difficult it will be to get a prescription (for treatment of sleep apnea) based on this (at-home) study," as opposed to having a lab test, said Edward Grandi, executive director of the American Sleep Apnea Association.

Although the at-home test is more convenient for many patients, some insurance companies reimburse only for sleep tests conducted in the laboratory, said Grandi. He recommends checking with individual insurance providers for reimbursement requirements before using the at-home device.