CATHERINE LOCATIS (VOICEOVER): I live
on Edisto Island, which is the big island before you
get to the beach.
Most people think of Edisto Beach,
which is Colleton County.
And it gets very lively in the summer.
Lots of people, vacationers.
And then, it's very quiet in the winter.
And then, to get to the beach, you
have to travel along Edisto Island, which
is Charleston County, much more rural, less business.
So sort of two different places, but they're right next
to each other.
To me, it's a real privilege to live in the middle of nature
and not surrounded by a lot of human beings and activity.
I knew I needed to be checked for apnea.
I was waking up with headaches, like almost, like hangovers.
And I wasn't drinking.
And my blood pressure was going up and up.
And the doctor in Mount Pleasant,
there was an article about him in the paper
that you could get a sleep test at home.
I had no idea.
So I contacted his office and did that.
Place this like that.
And this device--
Sleep telemedicine is a new direction
in sleep health care, where we are delivering care virtually.
Sleep lends itself particularly well
to telemedicine, because the diagnosis is made
talking to people, often in conjunction
with doing a sleep study, which we can now send to them so
that they can do at home.
It's not like rheumatology where you
have to examine the knee or something like that.
The diagnosis are made by getting a really good history.
CATHERINE LOCATIS (VOICEOVER): His office sent it to me.
I took the sleep test and returned the little apparatus.
It's a little thing you wear, a belt around your chest
and a hexameter on your finger.
It's a thing that tests your oxygen saturation rate.
And it's monitoring a couple of things.
And it can tell when you have stopped breathing
for a good length of time.
And that's what we were measuring, how much I
stopped breathing and how long.
And then, when the results were available
we made an appointment to discuss the results
and he made his suggestions on what to do with the results.
The benefit to me was huge, because I've
been to a traditional sleep lab with my husband.
And that's much more involved and a lot of expense.
And then, now that I did it and I used the machine,
I wake up more rested.
Sleep is a very underserved field in medicine.
There are many areas in South Carolina that are underserved.
Throughout the country, often times people
have to travel great distances to go to the nearest sleep
center, which is in an urban area
and they're out in a rural area.
The population of the United States, as we know,
is growing, but sleep doctors not going to match that demand.
CATHERINE LOCATIS (VOICEOVER): How health is growing,
it's going to have to be the way of the future.
For the growth in the population, the growth
in the aging population.
A lot of people like me who live out here
in the boondocks, people eventually
have to move to town, because they're not
able to keep up with their health problems.
And this is one way to maybe stop that day from coming,
if you can stay out here and not have to move to town.