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Acute and Chronic illnesses and injury can adversely affect your physical, emotional, relational and spiritual well being. Taking control over your life is vital to gaining well being and living life to the fullest. With good preventive care, early intervention, and the many treatment options available, management of many illnesses can be successful and provide individuals with a quality of life that allows for continued living with dignity
A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders are serious enough to interfere with normal physical, mental, social and emotional functioning. Polysomnography is a test commonly ordered for some sleep disorders.
Disruptions in sleep can be caused by a variety of issues, from teeth grinding (bruxism) to night terrors. When a person suffers from difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep with no obvious cause, it is referred to as insomnia. Dyssomnia refers to a group of sleep disorders with the symptoms of trouble falling asleep or maintaining sleep, which may cause an elevated sense of sleepiness during the day. Insomnia is characterized by an extended period of symptoms including trouble with retaining sleep, fatigue, decreased attentiveness, and dysphoria. To diagnose insomnia, these symptoms must persist for a minimum of 4 weeks. The DSM-IV categorizes insomnias into primary insomnia, insomnia associated with medical or mental diseases, and insomnia associated with the consumption or abuse of substances. Individuals with insomnia often worry about the negative health consequences, which can lead to the development of anxiety and depression.
In addition, sleep disorders may also cause sufferers to sleep excessively, a condition known as hypersomnia. Management of sleep disturbances that are secondary to mental, medical, or substance abuse disorders should focus on the underlying conditions.
Common disorders
The most common sleep disorders include:
- Insomnia disorder: Chronic difficulty in falling asleep and/or maintaining sleep when no other cause is found for these symptoms.
- Bruxism: Involuntarily grinding or clenching of the teeth while sleeping.
- Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD): inability to awaken and fall asleep at socially acceptable times but no problem with sleep maintenance, a disorder of circadian rhythms. (Other such disorders are advanced sleep phase disorder (ASPD), non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder (non-24), and irregular sleep wake rhythm, all much less common than DSPD, as well as the transient jet lag and shift work sleep disorder.)
- Hypopnea syndrome: Abnormally shallow breathing or slow respiratory rate while sleeping.
- Narcolepsy: Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) often culminating in falling asleep spontaneously but unwillingly at inappropriate times. Also often associated with cataplexy, a sudden weakness in the motor muscles that can result in collapse to the floor.
- Idiopathic hypersomnia: a primary, neurologic hypersomnia, which shares many similarities with narcolepsy.
- Night terror: Pavor nocturnus, sleep terror disorder: abrupt awakening from sleep with behavior consistent with terror.
- Parasomnias: Disruptive sleep-related events involving inappropriate actions during sleep; sleep walking and night-terrors are examples.
- Periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD): Sudden involuntary movement of arms and/or legs during sleep, for example kicking the legs. Also known as nocturnal myoclonus. See also Hypnic jerk, which is not a disorder.
- Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD): Acting out violent or dramatic dreams while in REM sleep, sometimes injuring bed partner or self (REM sleep disorder or RSD)
- Restless legs syndrome (RLS): An irresistible urge to move legs. RLS sufferers often also have PLMD.
- Situational circadian rhythm sleep disorder: shift work sleep disorder (SWSD). Jet lag was previously included here, but it doesn’t appear in DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
- Sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea: Obstruction of the airway during sleep, causing lack of sufficient deep sleep, often accompanied by snoring. Other forms of sleep apnea are less common. When air is blocked from entering into the lungs, the individual unconsciously gasps for air and sleep is disturbed. Stops of breathing of at least ten seconds, 30 times within seven hours of sleep, classifies as apnea. Other forms of sleep apnea include central sleep apnea and sleep-related hypoventilation.[3]
- Sleep paralysis: is characterized by temporary paralysis of the body shortly before or after sleep. Sleep paralysis may be accompanied by visual, auditory or tactile hallucinations. Not a disorder unless severe. Often seen as part of narcolepsy.
- Sleepwalking or somnambulism: Engaging in activities that are normally associated with wakefulness (such as eating or dressing), which may include walking, without the conscious knowledge of the subject.
- Nocturia: A frequent need to get up and go to the bathroom to urinate at night. It differs from Enuresis, or bed-wetting, in which the person does not arouse from sleep, but the bladder nevertheless empties.[4]
- Somniphobia: A cause of sleep deprivation. Somniphobia is a dread/ fear of falling asleep or going to bed. Signs of illness include anxiety and panic attacks during attempts to sleep and before it. [5]
- Kleine–Levin syndrome
retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_disorder