Sleepwalking

Introduction Sleepwalking, commonly known as "disorder", refers to sudden rise in sleep to carry out activities, and then sleeps, wake up and know nothing about the activities during sleep. In recent years, research in the night tour laboratory has shown that both night terrors and sleepwalking disorders are sleep disorders. Night nocturns do not occur in dreams, but occur in the deep sleep phase 3-4 of sleep. This phase is concentrated in the first half of the night. . Night snoring usually occurs 2-3 hours after falling asleep. Sleepwalking occurs mostly in children (6 to 12 years old) and can occur in any period of children, but it is more common in 5 to 7 years, lasts for several years, and can disappear after entering puberty.

Cause

1. Psychosocial factors: Some children with sleepwalking are related to psychosocial factors. Such as the disorder of daily life, environmental stress, anxiety and fear, family relationship is not good, parent-child relationship is not good, learning tension and poor test scores have a certain relationship with the occurrence of sleepwalking.

2. Sleep too deep: Because sleepwalking often occurs in the first 1/3 of the deep sleep period of sleep, various factors that make the sleep deepen, such as overwork during the day, sleepiness caused by staying up late for several days, taking sleeping pills before going to bed, etc. Can induce the occurrence of sleepwalking.

3. Genetic factors: Family surveys show that patients with sleepwalking have a positive family history in their families, and the same rate of twins is six times higher than that of twins, indicating the disease. It has a certain relationship with genetic factors.

4. Developmental factors: Because the disease occurs mostly in childhood, and gradually stops with age, indicating that sleepwalking may be related to the developmental delay of the cerebral cortex.

an examination

Related inspection

EEG sharp wave cranial nerve examination

After a period of time when she started to fall asleep, she suddenly woke up, staring up, irritating, horrifying facial expression, gazing, sometimes shouting, but her consciousness was still paralyzed, and she could show pale, shortness of breath, and out. sweat. At the time of the attack, it is generally difficult to wake up if the child is called. The child often ignores it, still shows panic, crying or yelling, and grabs anyone nervously. It seems to continue to suffer some kind of intense pain, but to the father and mother. The appeasement, hugs, and anxiety are turned a blind eye. The episode usually lasts for more than ten minutes and can fall asleep on its own. After waking up, the content of the night terror episode is completely forgotten or only the segment memory.

Differential diagnosis

Sleepwalking needs to be differentiated from the following symptoms:

Sleeping disease: This disease is also known as night snoring, sleepwalking. It is a state of consciousness change that exists simultaneously with sleep and awakening.

Night snoring: Night snoring, also known as sleepwalking or sleepwalking, occurs mostly in childhood, and can also be one of the manifestations of epilepsy, often occurring in the S3 and S4 phases of non-eye fast moving sleep. The disease was once called "sleepwalking", and it was confirmed by EEG study that the disease has nothing to do with night dreams.

The material in this site is intended to be of general informational use and is not intended to constitute medical advice, probable diagnosis, or recommended treatments.