BACKGROUND Alteration of the intensity of light reaching the pineal gland through the visual pathway affects the sleepwake cycle in humans. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence, types and severity of sleep-wake disorders in the blind and their relation to the degree and cause of blindness. METHODS One hundred and seventy consecutive blind patients were included in the study. The patients w...

Clinical observation suggested that speech disorder seemed to be associated with sleep apnea. We recorded a standard speech sample from 39 matched subjects in three groups, 13 sleep apnea individuals, 13 subjects with COPD, and 13 subjects without sleep apnea or COPD. Three speech pathologists in a single blind listening task of the recorded samples judged whether or not speech disorder was pre...

BACKGROUND This study explored the relationship between symptoms of rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, thermoregulation and sleep in Parkinson's Disease. METHODS The study group comprised 12 patients with Parkinson's Disease and 11 healthy age-matched controls. We investigated markers of thermoregulation (core-body temperature profile), circadian rhythm (locomotor actigraphy) and sl...

O bstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a complex disorder consisting of periods of upper airway obstruction during sleep [1], which are terminated by arousals and oxyhaemoglobin desaturations. Most adults with this disorder present in mid-life with an up to ,20-yr progressive history of loud snoring often of increasing intensity, punctuated by witnessed apnoeas and resuscitative snorts. As sleep ap...

The Grand Challenge for Sleep and Chronobiology in the Neurology/Neuroscience domains for the twenty-first century is to improve our understanding of the complex relationships between sleep, wake, and chronobiology in healthy subjects and in patients with neurological disorders. Sleep disorders are very common and often disabling conditions that can be isolated or associated with neurological d...

Sleep disturbance, known as insomnia, is a common symptom of many mental illnesses. Insomnia is one of the most prevalent sleep disorders characterized by sleep difficulty that affects our life and work safety. Several lines of evidence support the primary insomnia as a risk factor/predictor for depression and anxiety disturbances. Anxiety disorders and insomnia are common, debilitating and hig...

Circadian Rhythm Disorders: Advanced Phase Sleep Disorder The tendency for elderly patients to spend more time asleep during the day and less time asleep at night raises the possibility that neurological dysfunction of the biologic clock within the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus mediates these changes. Advanced phase sleep disorder is a well-recognized circadian disorder in which p...

Obstructive sleep apnea is a relatively common disorder which is being recognized and diagnosed with increasing frequency. Patients with this disorder are frequently overweight and usually present with longstanding history of heroic snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness. The diagnosis is established with an overnight sleep study, although the decision as to who should be sent to a sleep labo...

objectives: parasomnias can create sleep disruption; in this article we assessed parasomnias in school-aged children in tehran . methods: in spring 2005, a total of 6000 sleep questionnaires were distributed to school-aged children in 5 districts of tehran (iran). a modified pediatrics sleep questionnaire with 34 questions was used. results: parasomnias varied from 0.5% to 5.7% among the subjec...