Evaluation Instruments for Sleep Disorders: A Brief History of Polysomnography and Sleep Medicine

Abstract

Sleep is a vital biological function and we currently know that sleep disorders are highly prevalent in the population. The history of the development of sleep science and sleep medicine is inextricably tied to the development of polysomnography, used as a means to assess, objectively and in a reproducible way, sleep and wakefulness. Over the past 50 years, technologic advances and scientific progress have permitted huge improvements in the systems used to record sleep. Furthermore, major advances in sleep science and pathology are linked with improvements in the methods of recording and analyzing sleep. It can be asserted that the development of polysomnography transformed sleep research from a speculative area to an experimental science. This chapter has been organized to briefly relate the major developments in sleep medicine and to summarize the evolution of polysomnography.