Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a lifelong central nervous system disorder of maintaining any state or stage of sleep or wake. The patient sleeps poorly at night, suffering instrusions of wakefulness. Additionally, during the day, the patient is likely to experience intrusions of sleep into wakefulness. If the intrusion is REM sleep, the patient experiences hallucinations, physical collapse, and sleep paralysis.

Treatment is generally pharmacologic. There are documented genetic factors to this disorder. Its prevalence in the American population is from 1:1000 to 1:2500.

Do you have narcolepsy?

Symptoms of narcolepsy include:

• Profound, sudden, and unavoidable excessive daytime sleepiness
• Sudden loss of muscle tone (cataplexy) during laughter, anger, excitement
• Hallucinations while fighting off a strong urge to sleep
• Fragmented nighttime sleep