Sleep Disorders
| Sleep Apnea | Narcolepsy | Insomnia |
The following is a brief description of a few common sleep disorders, as well as methods for detecting and treating them.
Heavy snoring can signal health problems, one of which is sleep apnea. People with sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly throughout the night, sometimes hundreds of times. The person's sleep is repeatedly interrupted, but he often does not recall awakening.
Sleep apnea is usually caused by an obstruction or narrowing of air passages. The disorder can cause excessive daytime sleepiness, fatigue, personality changes, morning headaches, hypertension, impotence, irregular heart rhythm and even death. Because it occurs during sleep, this condition can go undetected by the patient. Often a spouse will notice the warning signs, which include:
Pauses in breathing that can last to 90 seconds
Treatment for sleep apnea varies according to the symptoms and severity of the problem. Selected patients benefit from types of oral mouthpieces, or surgical and radiofrequency techniques which reduce tissue in the airway. Machines which deliver air through the nose may be prescribed in many instances.
Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder which causes irresistible sleep attacks. While the disorder affects each person differently, it is often marked by sudden attacks of sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, muscular weakness, hallucinations and attacks of rapid eye movement (REM).
Sometimes narcolepsy patients exhibit automatic behavior, performing tasks without consciously thinking and then being unable to recall details of having done the task.
Because these attacks can happen anywhere and at anytime, they can be very dangerous. Narcolepsy is diagnosed using a combination of the patient's history, and the findings from both a nighttime sleep study and a series of nap studies conducted for the following day.
Narcolepsy is usually treated with carefully administered stimulants to prevent the sleep attacks, along with educational support.
The inability to fall asleep or stay asleep can be transient, lasting a few days or weeks, or chronic, lasting months to years. Transient insomnia is caused by emotional upsets or stress and will usually go away once the problem lessens. Chronic insomnia is more often caused by medical, neurological or psychiatric problems which should be evaluated and treated.
Insomnia patients are generally treated by their regular physicians and only infrequently require specialized studies. Other specialists such as internal medicine physicians, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and geriatric specialists may become involved in the care of patients suffering from insomnia.
