| |
Narcolepsy
Facts
An
Introduction
Narcolepsy is a type of chronic
neurological disease that is caused by inability and
failure of the brain to stimulate sleep wake cycles. At
certain times in a day, the patient with narcolepsy
suffers extreme sleepiness especially during the day.
For times which the sleepiness becomes uncontrollable,
narcoleptics will suddenly fall asleep in minutes. There
are also cases where patients fall asleep suddenly for an
hour or even longer. However these cases are very
rare.
People
with narcolepsy’s sleep episode frequently
appear at any time. They may fall asleep even
while doing something or at any places like
school, work place, while driving, while playing
games, and even while having a conversation.
This can be really dangerous to them as it can
bring harm to them especially when they are
using hazardous machinery and
driving.
Furthermore, in the
daytime excessive sleepiness, there are
three main symptoms that normally summarize
narcolepsy that are hallucination upon
waking up, cataplexy, or a sudden muscle
control loss, and paralysis at the end or
start of their sleep.
Commonly believed,
most people that have narcolepsy did not
spend much proportion of their time to
sleep in the 24 hours day as normal
sleepers. Beside, there was addition of
drowsiness that leads to sleepiness
during the day for narcoleptics. Most of
them also experiences awakenings during
night time. Because of these, this
narcolepsy disease are considered as a
disorder of their usual boundaries
between waking up and sleeping
period.
For adults,
usual night sleep is when they
get to sleep for almost eight
hours. But it is different for
people with narcolepsy. A sleep
cycle were showed by segments of
non rapid eye movement (NREM)
sleep then only the period of
rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
Non rapid eye movement period
can be divided into groups
according to the frequent and
size of brain waves. For rapid
eye movement sleep, it is
followed by rapid eye movement
along with heightened activity
in brain and temporary muscles
paralysis.
This
affects the body movement
and body
posture.
When
patient are awakened, they
tend to “have a dreams” often
if they had been in rapid eye
movement sleep than when they
had been in non rapid eye
movement sleep. The period
from non rapid eye movement
sleep to rapid eye movement
sleep were caused by
interactions in neurons that
are the nerve cells which
stay in certain part in
brain.
Scientist
and specialist doctors
believe that narcolepsy
is caused by the process
that affect the brain
mechanisms and regulate
rapid eye movement
sleep. For normal
people, their usual
sleep cycle is from 100
up to 110 minutes,
beginning with the non
rapid eye movement sleep
to rapid eye movement
sleep after 80 until 100
minutes. For
narcoleptics, they
normally enter rapid eye
movement sleep within
only a few minutes from
the beginning of falling
asleep.
Until
today, there is no
proven cure for
treating narcolepsy.
So, the sudden sleep
onset, cataplexy and
over sleepiness on
the daytime were
treated by involving
the combination of
the practice in
getting sufficient
sleep, drugs and
medicines, and
special
treatment.
While
there is no one
proven method
for treating
narcolepsy,
you can help
yourself
tremendously by
understanding this
condition.
|
|
Delicious
Facebook
Google Bookmarks
Stumbleupon