About Sleep Disorders
Sleep disorders are more common than you might expect. Some 50 million adults in the U.S. have a chronic sleep disorder. Sleep disorders tend to cause daytime drowsiness, fatigue, and distress, which can profoundly affect family life, workplace performance, and driving safety. Drowsy driving crashes cause at least 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. (NHTSA)
Many sleep disorders, like sleep apnea, can sneak up on you gradually, so you may not recognize them or notice how much they are affecting you. Once correctly diagnosed, all sleep disorders are treatable.
Daytime Sleepiness and Insomnia
These conditions affect many people and may occur separately or together. In addition to disrupting your personal life and work performance, the effects of disturbed sleep can put you and others at risk of injury. Other effects may include personality changes, irritability, difficulty with thinking or memory, or depression. Causes may be medical, psychiatric or environmental and include stress, medications, pain, illness, noisy surroundings and even sleeping pills. Once diagnosed, these disorders can usually be treated effectively.Snoring
Snoring results from partial obstruction of the upper airway. In addition to disrupting the sleep patterns of those around you, it is often associated with sleep apnea.Sleep Apnea
In sleep apnea, an individual’s breathing repeatedly stops or nearly stops dozens, even hundeds, of times during sleep. This causes a sleep fragmentation and a feeling of fatigue or drowsiness. It may or may not be associategd with obesity.More than 18 million American adults have sleep apnea, and most of them don’t know they have it. Among children who snore, as many of 10 to 20% may have sleep apnea. Snoring is the most prevalent symptom of sleep apnea, but it is possible to have sleep apnea without snoring. Other symptoms may include excessive daytime sleepiness, morning headaches, personality and memory problems. In children, there can be learning or behavioral problem.
Sleep apnea is the most medically serious sleep disorder. Left untreated, the combination of disturbed sleep and oxygen starvation may lead to high blood pressure, heart and lung disease, heart attack, stroke and even death. Sleep apnea also increases the risk of utomobile crashes.
Sleep apnea is often treated with positive airway pressure therapy.
Restless Legs Syndrome
Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) causes an overwhelming urge to move the legs when they are at rest. This urge usually is accompanied by unpleasant sensations. Symptoms of RLS are most severe in the evening and nighttime hours, and can profoundly disrupt a patient’s sleep and daily life. RLS affects approximately 10% of adults and 2% of children in the U.S. RLS runs in families. But RLS is commonly unrecognized or misdiagnosed as insomnia, depression, or other neurological, muscular or orthopedic condition. If you have the symptoms of RLS, see a sleep specialist. Once correctly diagnosed, RLS can be effectively treated.Shift-work
Nearly ¼ of the U.S. workforce does shift work. Shift work is considered a sleep disorder because of the difficulty shiftworkers often have getting enough good quality sleep. Sleep-related results of shift work include disrupted sleep schedules, excessive sleepiness, insomnia, depression and/or irritability, reduced workplace performance, workplace accidents and injuries, and problems with personal relationships. Because of the disruption of their biological clock, shift workers are at increased risk for cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases.Sleep specialists can provide shiftworkers strategies for coping with their shiftwork schedule, and can also offer information for which may help to improve employee morale, performance, safety and health, as well as profitability of the company.
Other sleep disorders treated at Sleep Medicine Associates include:
- Periodic limb movement disorder
- Unexplained Fatigue
- Night terrors
- Circadian rhythm
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