Sleep disorders stem from functional physiological disturbances of the mechanisms of the body generating or timing of sleep. The disturbances in these physiological mechanisms are sometimes strengthened by different psychological factors such as conditioning, disturbing thoughts etc.

Sleep disorders are divided into two major classes. The first class of sleep disorders regards the amount, quality, or timing of sleep. In this category, the complaint of “having difficulties falling asleep at a reasonable time, intermittent waking up or having troubles staying with undisturbed sleep at night is frequently met. The patient meets these difficulties most often, sometimes every night while going to sleep, and the disorders sustain for prolong period of time. Not being able to sleep, the child or adults often encounter a significant distress and or impairments in their academic, social, occupational, marital, or familial functioning. Often the person experiencing these disorders suffer from light sleep and nervousness leading to a marked fear of going to sleep. This pattern of difficulties in going to sleep leading to the development of anxiety and marked fear from going to sleep forms eventually a vicious cycle of elevated anxiety and nervousness, irritability, frustration and an ongoing fatigue, subsiding paradoxically the incapacity of sleeping. The person may find himself distracted during the day, incoherent and hence, misunderstood frequently by the surrounding. In sever cases such symptoms may attribute to different accidents in the house as well as outdoors.

Despite definite agreement about the nature, etiology and clinical picture of these discreet sleep disorders, no laboratory tests present today possess the capability to pinpoint the disorder and as such are incapable of treating solely the neurological disorder.  Sleep disorders are today being treated with unspecific tranquilizers that may cause addiction in the long run and other disorders. For precise diagnosis and treatment of the neurological disorder causing the sleep disorder

see the paragraph discussing BDTAK in this account.

Sleep disorders are fairly common. In general surveys, 30 to 40% of the adult population complain of different sleep disorders while up to 25% of the referrals to sleep clinics are diagnosed as having physiological sleep disturbances.

Breathing – Related Sleep disorders

The essential features of these sleep disorders are disruptions of the sleep process leading to profound sleepiness or to insomnia. Sleepiness results from frequent arousal’s during the nights sleep, as the person struggles to breath normally. Under heavy sleepiness, the individual may just fall asleep into short naps during the day while being engaged in a conversation, sitting in meetings, and even walking or driving!!!. Resulting from sleep disorders, these naps are unrefreshing to the person who may find himself tired upon awakening. Breath related sleep disorders result from full or partial obstruction of the upper respiratory airways usually leading to snoring and sleep apnea (breathing disturbance) and partial awakening and thus destruction of the sleep process. Simple physiological diagnosis may reveal the cause of these “simple” breathing related sleep disorders. In contrast to the “simple” breathing related sleep disorders, in other cases the cause leading to the disorder may stem from neurological disturbances. Under regular healthy conditions, both sleep as well as breathing are under strict neurological control. Irregularities or abnormal central neurological control may result in sleep apnea leading to sleep disturbances. While an ordinary physical examination may reveal simple airway obstruction sleep disruption, only a novel advanced, noninvasive, biophysical diagnostic method (BDTAK) would reveal the nature and cause of the neurological disturbance giving way to treating the disorder.

In young children the signs and symptoms of breathing related sleep disorder and especially sleep apnea are more subtle than those observed in adults and the diagnosis is thus more difficult to establish. Snoring, which is characteristic of adults with obstructive sleep apnea, might not be evident. Agitated arousals and unusual sleep postures such as sleeping on the hands and knees are frequent. Night bed-wetting is also common in these disorders and if present, should raise the suspicion of obstructive sleep apnea.

Circadian rhythm sleep disorder     

When the sleep-wake cycle of the individual is out of phase from the surrounding and a mismach between the endogenous cycle of the individual doesn’t fit the exogenous cycle which drives the general population, the individual faces a sleep disturbance. The mismach is manifested by either the time of turning to sleep, the number of hours a person sleeps or the time in which the individual wakes up and starts his day. The child or adult facing this type of a disturbance most often finds himself awake and active when every one else turns to sleep and visa versa. As a result, numerous social, vocal, marital, or scholastic difficulties are often encountered. It should be stated at this time, that irresponsible attempts to shift the endogenous circadian natural free running cycle often is remarkably fruitless. Circadian rhythm sleep disorder is often mild to moderate when encountered by adults. In contrast to adults, children with circadian rhythm sleep disorder confront moderate to sever disturbance facing the necessity of turning to sleep at “reasonable “ times dictated by the society. Even more disturbing to the child is the need to wake up in the morning at “reasonable” hour, once again dictated by the social norms, and being on time in school.

Epidemiological surveys have indicated that circadian rhythm sleep disorder is quite common and affects up to 6% of the general population. A definite high correlation between circadian rhythm sleep disorder with other psychiatric and psychological disturbances was found. According to neuropsychological recommendation of Dr. Kessler, who wrote this document, the neurological basis of the disorder should be considered initially. Precise diagnosis and treatment of the core neurological basis of the circadian rhythm sleep disorder, as done at the “Gene Plus”, clinic for advanced psychology, often resolves not only this specific disorder but the additional comorbid psychiatric as well the psychological disturbances.

The second class of sleep disorders concern different abnormal activities performed by the person while he is asleep. These abnormal activities consist the activation of the autonomic nervous system evident by profound sweating, accelerated heart beats, vocal system by talking, motor system in walking or the cognitive system, all of which are activated while the person is sound asleep. This class of disorders consist the nightmare disorder, sleep terror disorder and sleepwalking disorder. Following will be discussed the Sleepwalking disorder.

Sleep-walking disorder 

Sleepwalking individuals rise from bed while being fast asleep, and walk around the house or perform different motor activities while being asleep. All along the motor behavior the person is unaware of his or her actions and walks around with a blank stare and glazed eyes. Alertness is reduced at these episodes and attempts to “wake” or communicate with the sleepwalker are unsuccessful. When the person wakes up in the morning, if at all he only has partial and vague memories of the night’s episode(s) and nocturnal activities.

At times, the person may just straight up and sit erect in bed, say a few words or sentences and return to sleep. At other times, the person may rise and get out of bed, start walking around the house and perform different activities like wash dishes, put in or take out clothings from the closet, eat or get out of the house and walk around the neighborhood. Inappropriate actions and activities may be done at strange irregular places like spilling water on the carpet, eating and littering in the living room, urinate at different places apart from the toilets etc. leaving evidences about the night’s activity.

Every day psychological or physiological stresses may influence and increase the frequency of appearance of sleepwalking episodes. The existence of different neuropsychological symptoms may predict increased risk for having sleep walking disorder (see neuropsychological questionnaire on this site (SCLAK)). Sleepwalking may be dangerous as the person may get hurt while bumping into glass doors or windows, injure himself falling from a window or get run over by a passing vehicle while crossing a road inattentively. If along side the sleep walking disorder the child or adult has night terrors or nightmares the risk for injury increases as the individual may “run away” frantically from a “threat” in his sleep and thus hurt himself or others by accident.

Sleepwalking starts in children at the ages of 4-7 years and is most frequent at 12 years of age. The number of cases found later on toward adulthood decreases markedly. It should be noted that about 20% of the children have shown some features of sleepwalking during their development and only 5% of the general adult population will show the disorder. Sleepwalking disorder possess a genetic component thus identifying one family member with sleepwalking disorder indicates the possibility of the existence of other unidentified family members as having the same disorder.

Treatment

The diagnosis of sleepwalking disorder is performed routinely and globally. Nevertheless, there are no known specific treatments to sleep disorders nowadays. In contrast, a novel non-invasive, accurate, easy to perform biophysical method (BDTAK) has recently been introduced for the diagnosis of specific brain malfunctions leading to sleep disorders thus consequently open new therapeutic avenues. Moreover, BDTAK makes possible to identify the genetic component as well as the relative efficacy of the medications employed by “Gene Plus” clinic’s experts. By running a comprehensive diagnosis and efficacy monitoring of the means employed utilizing BDTAK makes today possible to win the battle over sleep disorders gaining safe, sound and relaxing night’s sleep.