Best Neurologists for Sleep Disorders in Ohio

Dr. Foldvary-Schaefer is a staff neurologist at Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders and Epilepsy Centers and a professor of neurology. She sees adults whose sleep problems overlap with seizures, narcolepsy, or severe excessive daytime sleepiness, and she is one of the go-to referral destinations in the Midwest for patients who have been through multiple sleep studies without a clear answer. Her team helped run the HomePAP trial ², the study that established home sleep testing as a reasonable alternative to a lab sleep study for many people with suspected sleep apnea. She also led a long-term trial of solriamfetol ³, a newer medication for daytime sleepiness in patients with narcolepsy or sleep apnea.

Dr. Khan practices at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's Dublin location. She focuses on the sleep disorders most likely to affect the heart and blood vessels — obstructive sleep apnea, chronic insomnia, and obesity hypoventilation syndrome (where low nighttime oxygen is caused by a combination of weight and weak breathing). Patients typically come to her after a primary care doctor, cardiologist, or stroke team raises a concern about untreated sleep apnea. Her reviews on how insomnia and sleep loss raise cardiovascular risk ⁶⁷ are widely cited by the doctors who decide whether to refer patients for a sleep study.

Dr. Parikh sees patients at University Hospitals in Sheffield Village and at UH Geauga. He is the person to see when the upper airway itself is the problem — enlarged tonsils, chronic sinusitis, and other ear-nose-throat conditions that drive snoring, mouth-breathing, and pediatric sleep apnea. He contributed to the national tonsillectomy guidelines ¹³¹⁴ that pediatricians use when deciding whether a child's snoring and daytime fatigue warrant surgery, and to the consensus statements on chronic rhinosinusitis ¹¹¹²¹⁵ that shape how adults with stuffy noses and poor sleep get treated.

Dr. Vensel Rundo is a sleep neurologist at Cleveland Clinic with privileges at Hillcrest and Medina Hospitals. Her patient panel leans toward people with moderate to severe sleep apnea who could not tolerate a CPAP mask and need an alternative — typically hypoglossal nerve stimulation, a small implanted device that gently moves the tongue forward during sleep to keep the airway open. She wrote the modern reference chapter on polysomnography ¹⁶ and regularly publishes on how to manage patients after a hypoglossal nerve stimulator is placed ¹⁸¹⁹²⁰.

Dr. Neme is a Cleveland Clinic neurologist who also sees patients at Akron General. Her niche is adults whose epilepsy medication has left them too tired to function during the day, where the usual question is whether the drug, the seizures, or an undiagnosed sleep disorder is the real driver. Her study on lacosamide and daytime sleepiness ²¹ helped clarify which epilepsy drugs are friendlier to sleep — useful when a patient is already dealing with both conditions.

Dr. Mindel practices at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center. He treats patients whose neurological conditions and sleep problems overlap — epilepsy, autoimmune encephalitis (when the immune system attacks the brain), and unusual cases where an implanted vagus nerve stimulator disturbs sleep ²⁶. He is part of the Ohio State group studying focused ultrasound as a less invasive option for people whose epilepsy has not responded to medication ²⁴.