Archive for February, 2007

Snoring is the act of breathing through the mouth when the flow of air is restricted through the nasal passage.

Snoring is caused due to the blockage in the breathing passage.

It causes vibration of uvula and soft palate and gives rise to sound which may be soft to unpleasant sound.

People who snore usually has problems such as excessive bulkiness of tissues of the throat, obstructed nasal airways, excessive length of soft palate and uvula and poor muscle tone.

It is found that thirty four percent of men are habitual snorers and are at high risk of OSA. The serious form of snoring is called obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). OSA is defined as the cessation of the breathing during sleep due to the obstruction of airways.

The cessation of breathing lasts for more than ten seconds. You will get up for breathing and go back to sleep again. It occurs hundreds of times per night.

This condition occurs due to the lack of muscle tone in upper airway that causes the airway to collapse. As have to get up to resume breathing, your night sleep may be disturbed. You may have tiredness, fatigue, and excessive sleepiness during daytime.

Parasomnias are common and frequent in children than in adults.

Parasomnia refers to an event which is infrequent and mild.

Parents should help their child overcome from parasomnia.

They occur often and sometimes they are severe and require medical condition.

Types of parasomnia are confusional arousal disorder, night terrors, sleep talking and sleep walking or somnambulism. The child will act complex behaviors when awake and when they are asleep, they don’t remember.

Parasomnias are common in children and they do not indicate any psychiatric or psychological problems. These diseases tend to run in families and children are affected. The other reasons for the child to be affected with parasomnia are fever, stress and tiredness.

Confusional arousals: Confusional arousal disorder occur mainly in infants and children. They begin with child crying in the bed. The child will be confused or upset.

The child does not recognize their parents and resists attempts to being consoled. The event last up to half an hour. Parents try to console their children and the children go back to sleep after the event and return to sleep.

Portable somnoscreen is a device used to diagnose the patients suffering from sleep disorders including serious sleep disorder, sleep apnea.

From three years, sleep laboratories have been using successfully the somnoscreen and are currently being used to diagnose and evaluate the patients.

Palm sized somnoscreen is the sleep monitoring system available today for performing sleep studies in any location.

Portable somnoscreen is smallest in size with full features. It is a complete portable polysomnograph with up to 28 channels, which provides unparalleled mobility for the patient and the sleep physician.

It transmits data wirelessly to the PC of sleep practitioner through the built-in transmitter where it can be monitored in real time or stored for later evaluation. It allows the patient to sleep normally and the patient is free to move and even go to toilet.

There is no need to be tied with wires and electrodes to the bed and therefore it reduces the incidence of panic attacks. The electrodes, cables and unit are all worn on the patient. The unit is fitted directly onto the thorax or abdomen.

It contains five internal sensors. The body position sensor determines the patient’s position. The internal effort sensor allows the user to define the thoracic or abdominal effort.

During childhood, almost every children experience nightmares. Children get nightmares due to the stress in normal lives.

Once your child was awaken by nightmare, it is difficult for your child to go back to sleep. Nightmares are common in children two to six years old.

A nightmare is a bad dream, which can make your child feel anxious, upset or scared but does not cause any harm to your child.

Nightmares take place during light stage of sleep. Our brain flows through different stages of sleep in which some stages are deeper than others.

Dreaming takes place during lighter stages of sleep and children who have nightmares cannot get into deep stages of sleep.

Children get nightmares due to the stressful things that happen during daytime. They may face problems in the school, home, sports, school work or exams. Another reason for nightmares is watching scary and horror movies or reading scary books before going to bed.

Children who are sick, especially with high fever may have nightmares. Certain medications result in nightmares. Children wake up in the night when they have a bad dream. They wake up talking, crying and yelling and may be very frightened.

Gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a disorder that results from stomach acid moving backward from the stomach into the esophagus.

It is identified by burning chest pain. If not treated, GERD can be a problem because reflux of stomach acid damages the tissue lining the esophagus, causing pain and inflammation.

During sleep, acid contact time with esophageal mucosa increases and acid clearance reduces. Acid contact and heartburn make you arouse from sleep. This arousal disturbs your sleep and results in daytime fatigue and tiredness.

Nighttime GERD can cause major sleep disturbances. It has been considered a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). OSA is a serious sleep disorder that occurs due to the obstruction of airflow through the airway. It results in cessations of breathing.

Symptoms of GERD include a sour taste of acid, feeling of burping acid into the mouth, sore throat, trouble swallowing, feeling of food stuck in the throat, bad breath and dry cough. Heartburn can be controlled by making some changes in your lifestyle.

Almost everyone suffers with changing seasons and that too with winter blues.

Seasonal Affective Disorder(SAD) is referred to as winter blues.

Sunlight can lift your spirits while dull and rainy day makes you gloomy.

For some people, the shift in mood due to shift in season may not affect with daily life. But some people suffer with seasonal depression and laziness with cold weather.

Symptoms of seasonal affective disorder

The symptoms include depression, mood change, weight gain, fatigue, decreased energy, feeling of excessive sleepiness, difficulty in concentration, irritability, and increased appetite.

Seasonal affective disorder not only affects your ability to function normally but also affects the ability to get a good night’s sleep. Mostly women are affected with SAD.

SAD is associated with several sleep disorders such as advanced sleep phase syndrome and delayed sleep phase syndrome.

Waking up early in the morning and feeling tired early in the evening is referred as advanced sleep phase syndrome. Sleeping up to late morning and inability to fall asleep is called delayed sleep phase syndrome.

Sleep disordered breathing involves repeated awakenings from sleep due to the cessations of breathe during sleep.

The obstruction of breathe may occur due to the narrowed airway passage. You wake up to start breathing and then fall back to sleep.

Depending on the condition, sleep disordered breathing occurs. Your airway may be completely obstructed or partially obstructed, muscles of the throat collapse resulting in blockage of airway, your brain may forget to breathe during sleep or there may be an obstruction to the free flow of air. You may not be aware of the awakenings but your sleep will be disturbed.

Types of sleep disordered breathing:

1. Sleep apnea: Sleep apnea occurs when breathing stops during sleep. You wake up gasping for breathe, start breathing and again fall back to sleep.
2. Obstructive sleep apnea: Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the muscles of the throat collapse resulting in complete or partial blockage of airway passage.
3. Central sleep apnea: In central sleep apnea, the brain forgets to breathe during sleep. The central sleep apnea is related to the function of central nervous system.
4. Mixed sleep apnea: In mixed sleep apnea, both obstructive and central sleep apnea events occur.

Sleep patterns are often abnormal in dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Dementia is a disorder in which people lose the ability to remember.

Dementia develops at any age but it is most common in older people.

Time spent in deep sleep decreases as dementia advances and you may be easily awakened.

Your circadian rhythm is reversed and often you sleep during the day and wake up during night. Due to the reversal of wake and sleep and sleep disturbances at night results in many other health problems.

Sun downing

As people with dementia sleep during day and wake up during night, they wander at night with restless behavior. Wandering at night with this behavior is called sun downing. A person can experience sun downing at any time of the day or night.

Sun downing results from disturbed sleep in older dementia patients. Sun downing may be related to the change in circadian rhythms as circadian rhythm becomes irregular in dementia.

Reasons for sleep problems in dementia patients

People with dementia have disorders such as dehydration, infection, arthritis that contribute to sleep problems. The sleep can be interrupted with the use of certain drugs and medications.