You have probably heard that sleep is one of the main factors influencing the healthy living. This significant part of your daily routine allows your brain to rest and recharge. During sleep, pathways in your brain form, helping you create memories and enabling you to make quick neurological responses. Quality sleep promotes neuronal communication and can stimulate many biological processes in your body, including immunity and digestion. Although sleep is a significant part of survival, many patients with underlying medical conditions, including narcolepsy Glendale, struggle to enjoy the benefits of quality sleep.
Clinical educators should focus on creating awareness of relevant information about how the brain contributes to sleep and wakefulness to help care providers appreciate the underlying causes of narcolepsy. This strategy will help optimize the development and implementation of appropriate treatment and management plans to restore quality sleep that will eliminate patient concerns and rejuvenate their productivity.
What is narcolepsy?
Narcolepsy is a medical condition involving neurological hindrances to optimal brain control of sleep and wakefulness. Patients with narcolepsy do not have a sleep rhythm. This medical condition predisposes patients to uncontrollable episodes of sleep. The inconvenience of feeling sleepy at odd times can be embarrassing and life-threatening. Clinicians do not advise patients with narcolepsy to perform critical functions like driving due to the risk of falling asleep at the wheel.
Are you at risk of getting narcolepsy?
Narcolepsy affects all patients regardless of gender. You are more likely to develop narcolepsy if you have a positive family history of this neurological disease. Clinicians usually conduct comprehensive genetic testing on patients with sleep concerns to determine any narcolepsy link that might explain symptoms.
Narcolepsy develops in patients of all ages—however, initial signs of daytime sleepiness present during the teenage years or early twenties. Patient education should focus on the significance of early diagnosis and treatment for effective management of narcolepsy, especially since the symptoms of this condition mimic depression and sleep orders like insomnia. Comprehensive diagnostic protocols could help clinicians make accurate conclusions about these conditions and thus encourage early interventions that could improve clinical outcomes.
Are there different types of narcolepsy?
Comprehensive analysis of patients’ symptoms will encourage accurate diagnosis and thus help clinicians develop appropriate solutions to eliminate concerns and restore quality sleep. There are different types of narcolepsy. Patients should collaborate with trained and experienced clinicians who accurately classify symptoms into the correct kind of narcolepsy and thus develop ideal treatment and management plans to restore wellness. The two main types of narcolepsy include:
- Type 1 narcolepsy: Patients with this narcolepsy exhibit daytime sleepiness and cataplexy; upon undergoing neurological testing, patients with type 1 narcolepsy present low hypocretin levels. This neurotransmitter regulates the sleep-wake cycle and influences the rapid eye movement (REM) state.
- Type 2 narcolepsy: This type of narcolepsy involves excessive daytime sleepiness without cataplexy. Type 2 narcolepsy also presents abnormal levels of hypocretin. Abnormally low levels of hypocretin cause patients to experience daytime sleepiness and promote the presentation of dreaming sleep while the patient is awake.
- Narcolepsy affects sleep quality, thus limiting brain rejuvenation, which is critical for productivity.
Contact Sonoran Sleep Center to learn more about what causes narcolepsy and available treatments that could address your symptoms.
