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The Different Sleeping Disorders and the Accompanying Symptoms
Sleep disorders are a group of conditions characterized by disturbance in the amount, quality or timing of a person's sleep. They also include emotional and other problems that may be related to sleep. Sleep disorders are among the most common clinical problems encountered in all of medicine. However, for many years, people with sleep disorders were never taken seriously. It has been only during the past few decades that doctors, pediatricians and physicians have begun recognizing sleep disorders in children and adults. The youngest victims of sleep disorders are infants who wake up screaming in the middle of the night. The screams let out by children are very different from those let out when a child is hungry or has soiled his diaper. Children who have night terrors usually sit up with their eyes wide open, with a look of fear and panic, and let out "blood curdling screams." They may appear to be awake but are actually still asleep. Night terrors may also make a child sweat, breath faster and have a rapid heart rate. Sleep apnea, a potentially life-threatening condition found in children and adults, causes victims to stop breathing for 10 to 30 seconds at a time while they are sleeping. These short stops in breathing can happen up to 400 times every night. These periods of not breathing may make them wake up from deep sleep. An important part of the sleep cycle is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM sleep has also been called "paradoxical sleep", "desynchronized sleep", "active sleep" and "dream sleep". It is the deepest level of sleep and is necessary for the restorative and healing aspects of the body. When a patient is suspected of having a sleep disorder, the doctor may conduct sleep tests. While there are sleep tests for a variety of reasons, they are all different. One sleep test may indicate that a patient has a very short period of REM sleep, which impedes the ability of the patients body to heal or otherwise repair itself at night. Another sleep disorder test can determine whether a person is sleeping throughout the night and if there are periods where the supply of oxygen is lower than medically acceptable. Many people suffer from sleep apnea, although far less need treatment. Some of the most obvious symptoms of sleeping disorders are daytime drowsiness, disorientation, irritability, headaches, forgetfulness, body aches and fatigue. People with sleep disorders have been found to receive fewer promotions, have increased rates of absenteeism and demonstrate poor productivity. Also, the risk of motor vehicle crashes is increased in this group because of fatigue. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms visit a physician. There are diagnostics of other sleeping disorders that are far more critical and present themselves far earlier in a patients life. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that causes overwhelming and severe daytime sleepiness that often occurs at inappropriate times and places, even after adequate nighttime sleep. Periods of sleep can last for less than a minute to more than a half an hour. Many narcoleptics experience additional symptoms including cataplexy (a sudden loss of muscle tone while in a conscious state), hallucinations and other unusual perceptual phenomena, and sleep paralysis, an inability to move for several minutes upon awakening. Narcolepsy is typically a genetic disorder, and is considered to also be associated with brain damage or neurological disease or disorder. This is the reason some narcoleptic parents teach their children to drive in case they get stuck in traffic and fall asleep.
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