Rapid Responses to:

LETTERS: Mary Fay, Zan Buckner, Brian Symon, John Marley, James Martin, Dieter Wolke, Luci Wiggs, Gregory Stores, Paul Ramchandani, and Vicky Webb Treating children with sleep disorders BMJ 2000; 320: 1667 [Full text]

Rapid Responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid Responses published:

That's not what I said.

Mary Fay   (17 June 2000)

new email address

Mary K. Fay   (24 June 2002)

That's not what I said. 17 June 2000
Mary Fay Send response to journal: Re: That's not what I said.	In response to the response to my response...I did not say that every child with sleep problems should have a polysomnogram. I said that when we perform studies and draw conclusions that will be applied to large numbers of patients, we better know what we are talking about; to study sleep this requires a polysomnogram. Relying on history taking and physical exam alone seems to be frighteningly inaccurate since study after study indicates even sleep specialists are routinely missing things that appear on PSG's. Since I notice none of the references cited in the response to my response are less than 4 years old, this may be news to the authors. I stress that night waking and difficulty falling asleep are not contentious and disputed symptoms of UARS, but well-described and accepted symptoms. I did not list them as symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea, where often the exact opposite case would apply - a patient falling asleep too easily and sleeping too much. Again, to think we can study sleep without polysomnography is absurd. That doesn't mean every child has to be studied, it means we have to study a representative group and draw conclusions. To say we can't justify the expense of using polysomnography in a small number of children when the results will be applied across the board to all children is just plain bad research. It simply shouldn't be allowed to happen. Basing conclusions on our "detailed" questionnaires is a disservice to the children who don't even have the option of answering the questions for themselves.
new email address 24 June 2002
Mary K. Fay Send response to journal: Re: new email address	I have a new email address and would welcome hearing from anyone as concerned as I am about the quality of research being done on children with sleep disorders.