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What are Common Symptoms and Types of Sleeping Disorders in Adults, Teenagers, and Children?
| October 21, 2011 | Posted by Counting Sheep under Sleeping Disorders |
Any medical disorder that interferes with a person’s unique patterns of sleep can be classified as a type of sleeping disorder. The extent of these disorders varies from mild to dangerous and can negatively impact a person’s mental and physical capacities. These different disruptions to a healthy sleep pattern can be categorized and broken up so that they are more easily identified. These types of sleeping disorders can affect people of all ages, though some forms are more apparent in children rather than adults.
Different Types of Sleeping Disorders: List and Symptoms
Dyssomnia High Level Classification
Sleeping disorders falling into the dyssomnia category are ones that interfere with both the ability to get to sleep and staying asleep. These problems will directly affect the amount, quality, and consistency of a good night’s sleep. Dyssomnias can be broken up into the following types of sleeping disorders:
Intrinsic Sleeping Disorders — Originating from within the body
- Hypersomnia — Recurring excessive daytime sleepiness. These types of sleeping disorders are often seen in teenagers, but symptoms can continue throughout adulthood. Patients feel a constant need to nap at different times throughout the day, but still get no relief from these periods of rest. Often accompanied by long nights of sleep that leave the patient feeling disoriented. Symptoms include anxiety, hallucination, poor memory, low energy levels, and decreased cognitive activity. Primary hypersomnia is the continuous presence of these symptoms over months or even year. Recurrent hypersomnia is an intermittent occurrence of the symptoms that can come and go with normal sleeping patterns.
- Narcolepsy — A chronic sleep disorder most often associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. Patients with narcolepsy will experience strong urges to sleep throughout the day. Narcoleptic sleepers will experience REM sleep almost immediately from these spontaneous naps and can feel temporarily refreshed after brief periods of sleep. This can lead to abnormal sleeping patterns that may otherwise be confused with general insomnia. Narcoleptics may also experience cataplexy, which is a sudden weakening of the muscles. This muscular weakness is often triggered by some strong emotion, but it can just as easily occur without warning in more pronounced cases. These effects are thought to be an intrusion of REM sleep during a patient’s state of wakefulness. Almost half of narcoleptics will experience automatic behavior, or continuing what they were doing while actually being asleep. The patient will awake from these episodes with no memory of any conversation or action. Patient’s can also experience what is called sleep paralysis and be unable to move for a brief period of time upon awakening.
- Periodic Limb Movement Disorder — A sleep disorder that involves involuntary movements of the limbs that occur only during sleep. Occurs most commonly in elderly females, but is also seen significantly in adults. Waking symptoms are mostly limited to excessive daytime sleepiness, but can lead to sleeping during the day–as well as general symptoms of insomnia. Affected patients are unaware of their movements. Diagnosis requires a thorough examination of the patient’s NREM sleep period for repeated intervals of excessive movement.
- Restless Leg Syndrome — A neurological disorder that is similar to PLMD, but occurs during waking hours as well. This disorder similarly affects sleep patterns, but can cause other problems that are unrelated to sleep throughout the day.
- Sleep Apnea — Sleep disorder that consists of both abnormal missed periods of breathing or low breathing. Pauses in the breathing patterns are called apneas and typically will last only a few seconds. Symptoms include excessive daytime sleepiness, but also can include mood changes and cognitive disruption. There are two main forms of sleep apnea: central and obstructive. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is by far the most common form of the disorder. A combination of low muscle tone and soft tissue around the airway increase the risk of an obstruction. This type of combination is seen most often in people suffering from obesity. The rarer form is central sleep apnea (CSA) which is when the actual respiratory control system in the brain is imbalanced while a person sleeps. This causes an uneven level of breathing–or entire periods where the patient’s brain will not send the signal to breathe. CSA is one of the more dangerous sleeping disorders in children. Careful monitoring is often performed when any type of apnea is suspected in a child.
- Sleep State Misperception — This disorder is also known as paradoxical insomnia and subjective insomnia. Patients suffering from this disorder incorrectly believe that they are getting insufficient sleep when in reality they are demonstrating a consistent and healthy sleep pattern. SSM is most prevalent in both young and middle aged adults. Patients will often report that they feel tired, experience excessive daytime sleepiness, and have problems with insomnia–upon examination, and in the absence of other sleeping disorders, it is found that patients significantly overestimate their symptoms of insomnia.
Extrinsic Sleeping Disorders — Originating from external forces or substances
- Environmental Sleep Disorders — These disorders stem from a poor sleeping environment. External noises, light, and temperature can effect the quality and duration of a person’s sleep.
- Insufficient Sleep Syndrome — Constraints on time, work requirements, and scheduling can interfere with a healthy sleep schedule. Today’s society has placed less and less importance on sleep. The result is a population that often fails to meet the minimum 6 hours a not–leading to mood changes, reduced productivity, and careless accidents.
- Stimulant Dependent Sleep Disorders — Sleep disorders are often associated with intake of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and other drugs. Chemicals can inhibit a patient’s ability to get a quality full night’s sleep. Limiting intake of the offending substance throughout the entire day is the easiest and most effective way to combat this kind of sleep disorder.
Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders — Disorders interfering with the timing of sleep
- Advanced sleep phase disorder — Patients with ASPD are unable to follow a normal sleeping pattern. They will generally become tired and fall asleep before a normal bed time, followed by waking very early in the morning. Patients affected by this syndrome can be identified by a long period (months) of off-cycle melatonin levels. ASPD is most often seen in the elderly and equally among both genders. This syndrome does not normally cause problems outside of maintaining a normal schedule. Those affected are still able to get the required amount and quality of sleep–only at a slightly different schedule.
- Delayed sleep phase disorder — Similar to ASPD, but patients will suffer from only being able to go to sleep at a later time (e.g. midnight) which makes it hard to get enough sleep and still wake up in time for school or work. Patients allowed to follow their full delayed sleep schedule will not suffer any symptoms, but often strict morning schedules will cut short a full night’s sleep. DSPD has been seen to develop in early childhood or adolesence. Some types of DSPD will run their course by adulthood, while others will remain as a life long condition.
- Jetlag — Associated with traveling across different timezones, jetlag can interfere with the bodies perception of time and natural pattern. Regulation of body temperature and hormone regulation are the most important things that are upset by jetlag. Symptoms include fatigue, insomnia, and disorientation. These effects can be minor or more severe, taking some people days to adjust to a new time zone.
- Shift work sleep disorder — Sleep disorder that comes from subjecting the body to an unnatural sleep pattern. Most often this is due to working a night shift. The condition can cause symptoms of insomnia, excessive sleepiness, overwhelming desires to nap, and impaired physical and cognitive ability. Night shift workers suffering from this disorder are much more prone to accidents from carelessness because they are not able to operate at their full capacity. Symptoms of shift work have been shown to decrease is the change in sleep pattern is a gradual one–pushing the bodies natural rhythm back a few hours at a time. Often this is not possible in most realistic situations and the problem is compounded by lengthy schedules of 2-3 nights–followed by the remainder of the week on a normal sleeping schedule.
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