Sleep Apnea/Expert Profile

Expertise

Registered Respiratory Therapist and Licensed Respiratory Care Practitioner (IL). Thirty-five years in the field of Respiratory Care with the last twenty-five years spent concentrating in the area of sleep disordered breathing. Established the first hospital based compact multiphysiologic recording program for the diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS). I`ve been fortunate to have the opportunity over the past fifteen years to travel across the country and train fellow heath care practitioners in the scoring and analysis of compact sleep apnea studies.

Experience in the area

I'm proud to have built a comprehensive sleep disorders center in Chicago during the '80s and to then go on and build the first hospital based compact multiphysiologic recording program in the country. I now operate DRW&Associates Inc, providing sleep disorders case management services to the community along with both attended sleep studies in sleep labs along with unattended sleep studies done in the home.

What do you like about this subject?

I have had the opportunity over the years to help people who have sleep disordered breathing such as OSAS and I never tire of seeing the wonderful change in their lives after they are successfully treated.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?

I hope to continue publishing articles on sleep disordered breathing and to continue with my research projects on evaluating more effective ways to diagnose and treat sleep disordered breathing in the home setting rather than the hospital lab setting.

Something interesting about this subject that others may not know:

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is one of the most widely under-diagnosed conditions in males aged 40-60. The ratio of male to female cases appears to be 3:2, but the ratio evens out when women reach menopause. In any event, some estimates put the number of people in this country who have sleep problems related to snoring and increased upper airway resistance at over 20 million!

Something controversial or provocative about this subject

It is often unnecessary to spend a night or two in a hospital sleep lab in order to arrive at a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea. Using the latest in portable multiphysiologic recording devices and autoadjusting treatment units, we are able to successfully diagnose and treat OSAS unattended in the patient's home and do so for less than half the cost of a comparable test in a hospital.