Adult Sleep Walking May Be Genetic

Adults who sleep walk may do as the result of genetic disorder according to the news released from American Academy of Neurology.

In a recent study, reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers discovered the first genetic marker for sleep walking.

A study conducted from the University hospital in Bern, Switzerland, found that adult sleep walking has a genetic component related to the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) system, a genetically determined element of the immune system. HLA genes provide the information needed to allow the body to create immune cells.

Compared to child sleep walking, adult sleep walking is often associated with dangerous activities. In the study conducted, thirty two percent of participants reported occurrences of violent incidences as a result of sleep walking while nineteen percent reported injuries while sleep walking.

Of the study participants, 58% of them are sleep walkers from childhood and 24% of them had relatives who also were sleep walkers.

Sleep walking occurs when your brain has trouble making the transition from non-REM sleep to REM sleep. Adult sleep walking is related to REM sleep behavior disorder.

In adults, other than genetic factor, hyperthyroidism, head injury, migraine headache and encephalitis cause sleep walking. Other reasons of sleep walking are sleeping in unfamiliar surrounding, alcohol intake and spicy foods. For some of them, medications may cause sleep walking.

While sleep walking, the person has a blank face, unresponsive to others who try to talk and communicate with them.

A sleep walker will usually get up during the first two hours of sleep and walk around the house in a shock with eyes open. He may move around the bedroom and fall asleep after sometime. He may not remember the incident after getting up in the morning.

Sometimes he may come out of the room and can injure himself by hitting to the wall or any objects. He may fall down from the stairs or windows. The sleep walker may injure himself as well as injure others. The sleep walker may come out of the house, drive the vehicle and may hit another vehicle or the person walking on the road.

For some of them, the sleep walking episode occurs less than once per month and do not result in harm to the patients or others. But for others, the episode occurs almost every night and result in harm to himself and others also.

Diagnosis can be done by sleep history of the patient. Polysomnography test can be performed for overnight study of the patient.

There is no specific treatment for sleep walking. If sleep walking is caused by other medical conditions such as apnea, gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD), periodic limb movements, or restless legs syndrome, the medical condition should be treated

How to avoid risks for sleep walkers?

You should remove the sharp and dangerous objects which are present in their room.

Lock the windows and doors properly so that he may not injure himself by falling from windows or stairs.

Sleep walker’s room should be in the ground floor to avoid falling from stairs.

If a person is walking in the sleep, just talk to him loudly, wake him up and take him to the bed.

Stress, fatigue and anxiety should be avoided as these may lead to insomnia and it in turn instigates an episode of sleep walking.