![]() Hypnagogic hallucinations: The term refers to sensory illusions during the transition from waking to sleeping (i.e., during falling asleep) or from sleeping to waking (i.e., upon awakening).Conversely, not every narcoleptic has cataplexies (narcolepsy type 2). When cataplexies occur, narcolepsy is almost always present. In all cases, however, the affected persons remain fully conscious. But you can also buckle your knees briefly or even slump completely. Sometimes the acute loss of tone is only noticeable by the fact that the facial muscles slacken briefly and the affected person speaks unclearly and slurred. Cataplexy usually lasts only five to 120 seconds and can vary in severity. Triggers are intense emotions such as laughter, joy, pride, surprise or anger. Cataplexy: This refers to the sudden, momentary loss of tension (tone) in the muscles of the face, arms, and legs, usually on both sides of the body simultaneously.However, some sufferers also tend to fall asleep in more active situations, such as while eating or driving. Usually this daytime sleepiness becomes noticeable in monotonous situations (e.g. If they (can) sleep for 15 to 30 minutes, they usually feel refreshd for a few hours afterwards before becoming sleepy again. Daytime sleepiness: Narcoleptics are either constantly sleepy during the day or experience sudden attacks of falling asleep again and again – the sleepiness is so overpowering that they nod off, often only for a few minutes.Narcolepsy is essentially characterized by the following symptoms: Researchers suspect that in these cases, a loss of hypocretin-producing neurons provides the impetus for the impaired sleep-wake regulation. Very rarely there is a familial predisposition and also rarely the disease occurs as a symptom of brain damage – for example as a result of a stroke, encephalitis or an accident with brain injury. In addition to autoimmune processes, experts also discuss infections (such as with the flu) as triggers of narcolepsy. Sufferers alternate frequently between sleeping and waking at night and during the day. As a result, the normal sleep-wake rhythm is disturbed. It is possible that in affected narcoleptics the immune system destroys those nerve cells that produce the hormone hypocretin. Hypocretin is important for sleep-wake regulation: it strengthens wakefulness and stabilizes both wakefulness and sleep.Įxperts suspect that the reason for hypocretin deficiency is an autoimmune reaction of the body, i.e. ![]() This loss can be searched for and confirmed diagnostically by hypocretin measurements in the neural fluid the measurement has been offered at the University Hospital Zurich since the early 2000s. It is based on the loss of the predominant nerve cells in the brain that produce the nerve messenger hypocretin (or: orexin). Narcolepsy is a well-studied neurological disorder. In most cases, however, narcolepsy begins at a younger age, during adolescence or before the age of 40. The disease can appear for the first time at almost any age. However, experts assume that the number of unreported cases is high – many people probably suffer from narcolepsy without being aware of it or their doctor. Research shows that in Europe, only 26 to 50 people out of 100,000 of the population suffer from it. In certain cases, narcolepsy type 2 is only the early stage of type 1, i.e., over time, the affected person does develop cataplexies – the diagnosis then changes from “narcolepsy type 2” to “narcolepsy type 1”. Without deficiency of this nerve messenger and without cataplexy, narcolepsy type 2 progresses. the producing nerve cells in the brain have been lost. The decisive factor for narcolepsy type 1 is the fact that a measurable nerve messenger substance is largely missing in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), i.e. In most cases, cataplexies are not present from the onset of the disease, but develop months to years after the initial symptom, daytime sleepiness. This variant probably accounts for the majority of all cases of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy type 1 is associated with such attacks of muscle flaccidity (cataplexies). Two main forms of narcolepsyĮxperts distinguish two main forms of narcolepsy, in terms of the symptom cataplexy (sudden slackening of muscles as a result of strong emotional stimuli) described below: The result is excessive sleepiness during the day, which sufferers cannot resist and which cannot be alleviated even with sufficient sleep. Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder in which sleep-wake regulation in the brain is disturbed.
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