Idiopathic hypersomnia

Idiopathic hypersomnia

Idiopathic hypersomnia is excessive sleeping ( hypersomnia ) without obvious cause.

Idiopathic hypersomnia is much like narcolepsy, except there is no cataplexy, no sleep paralysis, and no rapid eye movement when the victim first falls asleep.

According to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD), Idiopathic hypersomnia is "a disorder of presumed central nervous system cause that is associated with a normal or prolonged major episode and excessive sleepiness consisting of prolonged (1-2 hours) sleep episodes of NREM sleep." Clearly, the ICSD definition merges Roth's monosymptomatic and polysymptomatic forms by indicating that some patients report great difficulty waking up and experience disorientation after awakening.

The term "idiopathic" means without known cause. This type of hypersomnia is similar to narcolepsy in that the individual is excessively sleepy, falls asleep at inappropriate times, frequently takes naps, and sleeps at night for greater than 10 hours. In some cases of idiopathic hypersomnia, cataplexy and hypnagogic hallucinations may be present and resemble the symptoms of narcolepsy. However, in idiopathic hypersomnia there are insufficient sleep onset REM periods to justify the diagnosis of narcolepsy.

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