PHANTOM OF THE NIGHT

PHANTOM OF THE NIGHT
T. Scott Johnson, MD, and Jerry Halberstadt
Onset, MA: New Technology Publishing, 1998
http://www.newtechpub.com
172 pages, paperback, $29.95
ISBN: 1-882431-0202

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

"Every night for at least 15 and probably for nearly 30 years," Halberstadt writes, "I was engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Two basic life forces were at war within me: the need to sleep and the need to breathe.

"This exhausting struggle left me limping. I would awaken each morning not refreshed but like a battered warrior, ill prepared to face life's daily conflicts and challenges."

After he was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, Halberstadt reports, it took another two years to fine-tune his treatment. Unable to find books addressing a patient's concerns, he teamed up with Johnson, a lung specialist at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, in Mobile, Alabama, to write this one, first published in 1992, and now in its sixth edition.

This book is packed with facts about sleep and sleep apnea, and contains numerous helpful drawings and photos. Illustrations accompanying a description of the sleep laboratory exam, for example, show electrode placement, tracings of brain waves, eye movements, heart rate, and more. In an unusual depiction of the rhythms of sleep, the authors use musical bars and notes to show sleep's melody and how its repetition and variations over the night create a symphony. The photos show a variety of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices in use, with extensive descriptions of individual devices, accessories, and special features.

The amount of detail here is extraordinary. If you want to know what type of battery you need for your CPAP device when you go camping, including suppliers and prices, this is your source book. For persons wondering what causes snoring and what can be done about it, this encyclopedic approach may prove somewhat overwhelming. For those with sleep apnea, however, this book is a trove of information.