Classification and Description of Sleep Disorders

Medical and psychiatric sleep disorders

Sleep disorders associated with medical disorders

1. Alcoholism

Alcohol abuse and dependency commonly disturb sleep. After 30 minutes of alcohol consumption, subjective sleepiness increases and stays high for four hours. After that, sleep become fragmented as the lowered alcohol level increases arousals. When alcoholics abstain from alcohol, sleep can be severely disrupted, and the short episodes of sleep they do get are often plagued by nightmares and other anxiety dreams.

2. Sleeping sickness (African sleeping sickness, Gambina trypanosomiasis)

This is a chronic protozoan brain infection that produces excessive sleepiness.

3. Nocturnal cardiac ischemia

Chest pains due to atherosclerotic heart disease that keep the sleeper awake at night.

4. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Lung or bronchial problems that inhibit lung function (like emphysema) can cause severe insomnia.

5. Asthma

Asthma attacks during sleep usually wakes up the sleeper.

6. Sleep-related gastroesophageal reflux

The victim wakes up from sleep with a sour taste in the mouth or with heartburn. This is because some of the stomach contents have been regurgitated into the esophagus during the night.

7. Peptic Ulcer

The pain of ulcers can waken the sleeper frequently during the night.

8. Fibrositis syndrome (fibromyositis, fibromalgia)

This syndrome is characterized by diffuse muscle and bone pain, chronic fatigue during the day, and unrefreshing sleep at night.

Sleep problems associated with neurological disorders

1. Degenerative brain disorders

Cerebral degenerative disorders such as Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, and others can disrupt sleep at night.. Fatal familial insomnia is a rare, inherited degenerative disorder that begins with sleep troubles and progresses within a few months to a total lack of sleep, and then death.

2. Sleep-related epilepsy

Epileptic seizures can be found in either wakefulness or sleep, and there are some types that are found mostly in sleep. These seizures disrupt sleep.

3. Sleep-related headaches

Headaches can strike during sleep. In some people, sleep- related headache is more common than waking headaches.

Sleep disorders associated with psychiatric disorders

1. Psychoses

Psychoses like schizophrenia and those that are drug-induced are characterized by delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, catatonic behavior, or inappropriate emotions. Insomnia or excessive sleepiness is also common in individuals suffering from such psychoses.

2. Mood disorders

Mood disorders include depression, mania, and hypomania. Insomnia is usually the result, but excessive sleepiness can occur too.

3. Anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders are characterized by unusually great anxiety and avoidance of whatever seems to cause it. Anxiety disorders can create sleep-onset association disorders or sleep-maintainance insomnia.

4. Panic disorder

Panic disorders are commonly called phobias: claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), and the like. Extreme fear and anxiety can occur unexpectedly, and panic episodes can waken people from their sleep.

Next Topic:

Intrinsic sleep disorders

Extrinsic sleep disorders

Circadian rhythm sleep disorders

Parasomnias

Proposed sleep disorders

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