May 17th 2024
Understanding the heterogeneity and complexities of the histamine monoamine system.
ADHD and Sleep Disorders in Children
June 13th 2012Sleep changes associated with psychotropic drugs are common enough to justify routinely obtaining a baseline sleep diary before beginning treatment, even when the initial screening for sleep disorders indicates that no further investigation is needed.
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Sleep Disturbances Associated With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
November 1st 2008The National Comorbidity Survey estimates that approximately 50% of the population in the United States is exposed to traumatic events and that the lifetime prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is approximately 7.8%.
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Treatment of Comorbid Sleep Disorders Improves Seizure Control
June 1st 2007It is a widely known fact that Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous 19th-century Russian novelist, suffered from epilepsy for most of his life. However, not too many persons are aware that Dostoevsky also had a sleep disorder called delayed sleep phase syndrome, which may have contributed to his seizures.1 Although no one knows for certain, it is quite conceivable that Dostoevsky's sleep disorder worsened his epilepsy, according to Carl Bazil, MD, PhD, director of Clinical Anticonvulsant Drug Trials and director of the Neurology Division, Columbia Comprehensive Sleep Center, Columbia University, New York.
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Patients who experience seizure 24 hours after stroke onset may be at increased risk for death, according to Angela Rackley, MD, a clinical neurophysiology fellow in epilepsy, and coresearchers at the University of Cincinnati. Rackley presented an abstract on the incidence of seizures within 24 hours after acute stroke at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society in San Diego this past December. She and colleagues found a higher 30- day mortality rate among patients who had a seizure within hours of stroke compared with patients who did not experience poststroke seizure.
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Recognition of Dopamine in Sleep-Wake Function May Improve PD Care
May 1st 2007aytime sleepiness is common in patients with parkinsonism but has little to do with the amount of sleep these patients get and everything to do with dopaminergic dysfunction, according to David B. Rye, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology at Emory University in Atlanta. "The idea is that if I sleep a lot, I shouldn't be so sleepy the next day, and if I sleep little, I should be very sleepy. This is doesn't hold true for patients with Parkinson disease [PD]. The loss of dopamine disrupts that banking system, or the sleep-wake homeostat," he said during a presentation at the 9th annual meeting of the American Society for Experimental Therapeutics, which met March 8 to 10 in Washington, DC. Addressing dopa- minergic tone during sleep might help ameliorate daytime symptoms of parkinsonism in general.
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Broken Sleep May Be Natural Sleep
March 1st 2007Once again your patient, an accountant and tax specialist, is complaining about his sleep. More nights than not he awakens at about 2 am. An hour goes by, sometimes 2, before he returns to sleep. You've prescribed 4 different hypnotics. Each gave the same unsatisfactory result. For 2 weeks, your patient got the 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep he-and you-seek, but then the old pattern returned. Following your instructions, he avoids caffeine, doesn't exercise after 6 pm, and confines his activities in bed to sleep, but to no avail. You refer him to a sleep laboratory, and the results there are entirely consistent with what he's been telling you. In the sleep lab he falls asleep at 11 pm, awakens at 2:30 am, returns to sleep at 4 am, and awakens for good at 7:30 am. He does not have sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, or depression.
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