Sleep Disorders
Sleep disorders affect more than 70 million people in the United States. In fact, one-third of all adults experience insomnia, and two to four percent of middle-aged adults have significant breathing disorders during sleep. Other less common sleep disorders include narcolepsy, nocturnal movement disorders, sleepwalking or other unusual nocturnal behaviors.
Sleep disorders impair sleep and wakefulness and can have a significant impact on your quality of life. If you suffer from a sleep disorder, you might:
- Miss work or perform poorly at work due to fatigue
- Experience memory and concentration problems and/or depression
- Be habitually irritable and short-tempered
- Experience sexual problems that strain your personal relationships
- Endanger yourself or others by falling asleep while working or driving
If you have a sleep disorder, you or your sleeping partner may notice these symptoms:
- Loud snoring
- Feeling tired all the time
- Difficulty falling and staying asleep
- Waking up frequently at night
- Jerking or twitching in your legs
- Walking, punching or kicking in your sleep
- Gasping or choking at night
- Recurrent nightmares
- Early morning awakenings
- Morning headaches
- Impotence
Common Sleep Disorders
There are more than 80 different disorders that
can affect your sleeping and waking cycles. Penn
Sleep Center physicians, who are researchers
and teachers in the area of sleep, have extensive
experience both diagnosing and treating these
disorders.
Among the most common are:
Insomnia
Insomnia is not a disease, but rather a symptom
that can occur with many different illnesses
or conditions. If you have insomnia, you probably
have a feeling of poor sleep or difficulty getting
to sleep.
Narcolepsy
Usually diagnosed in teenagers or people in their
early 20s, narcolepsy can also appear later in
life. It is characterized by an often overwhelming
feeling of sleepiness and may be associated with
other sleep disturbances.
Parasomnias
Parasomnias are abnormal behaviors that occur while
you sleep, such as sleep
talking, night
terrors, sleepwalking, bedwetting and
teeth grinding.
Sleep
Apnea
If you have sleep apnea, you stop breathing during sleep for brief periods of
time. This may happen several times a night and is often identified by loud snoring
and/or choking or gasping as you try to resume breathing. Sleep apnea has been
associated with hypertension, heart disease and increased risk of stroke.
For more information
about these and other
sleep disorders, visit sleepeducation.com,
a web site from the
American Academy of
Sleep Medicine.
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