Insomnia is a sleep disorder whereby a person has troubles in slumbering. People have difficulties in staying asleep as long as desired or they have difficulty in falling asleep. Insomnia disorder is also followed by low energy, daytime sleepiness, irritability, and a depressed mood.
Diagnostic criteria
Several criteria are used for the diagnosis of insomnia. This includes, difficulty initiating or early- morning awakening or maintain sleep which leads to dissatisfaction with sleep quality or quantity. Secondly, the impairments in occupational, social, educational, academic and other important areas result to sleep disturbance and cause important distress (Pillai, Roth & Drake 2016) . Patients experience for instance people should have adequate time to sleep, that they should sleep 3 nights per week and at least 3 months. Lastly, Insomnia is not associated with another sleep disorder rather is it explained by the attendance of mental disorders.
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Differential diagnosis.
This disorder shares similar symptoms and signs with other conditions. Most of the times, this disorder is difficult to diagnose (Monderer Ahmed & Thorpy, 2017). The most common differential diagnoses with this disorder include:
1. Sleep disorders that are related to breathing. 50 percent of the people who are suffering from sleep disorders have also a problem in breathing. For example, sleep apnea may have symptoms of insomnia.
2. Normal sleeps variations- As variations in normal sleep people from time to time may experience the Insomnia symptoms. Other factors and symptoms will not be present such as adequate opportunity to sleep or sleepiness during the daytime.
3. Narcolepsy- Narcolepsy and Insomnia share some similar characteristics, but the latter includes features like hallucinations which is related to sleep and sleep paralysis.
4. Parasomnias- The fatalities of narcolepsy struggle to fall asleep but the incidences are related to behavior.
Treatment of Insomnia
In the treatment of insomnia, there are behaviors, psychological and psychological techniques that are helpful for treatment of insomnia. Some of the examples are restricting sleep, stimulus control, relaxation training, and cognitive behavior therapy ( Van, Straten, van der, Zweerde Kleiboer, Cuijpers, Morin & Lancee 2018). There also different types of sleep aids for the disorder, which include prescription medication and overtime counter. Health factors and insomnia symptoms determine the kind of the medications that the patient is going to be given. The examples of insomnia medications are benzodiazepine hypnotics, melatonin receptor agonists and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics. Additionally, there are alternative medicines that help people to sleep. Those products are not required to pass through the same security tests as medicines. Thus, their effectiveness and side belongings are not well spoken.
Referrals
The patients should make an appointment to go and see a GP doctor if he or she is struggling to stay asleep or if the person is struggling to get to sleep. If someone has already seen a doctor and the sleep have not improved, he or she can apply for NHS access to sleep station.
References
Monderer, R., Ahmed, I. M., & Thorpy, M. (2017 ). Evaluation of the sleepy patient: Differential diagnosis. Sleep medicine clinic s , 12 (3), 301-312.
Pillai, V., Roth, T., & Drake, C. L. (2016). Towards quantitative cutoffs for insomnia: how current diagnostic criteria mischaracterize remission. Sleep medicine , 26 , 62-68.
van Straten, A., van der Zweerde, T., Kleiboer, A., Cuijpers, P., Morin, C. M., & Lancee, J. (2018). Cognitive and behavioral therapies in the treatment of insomnia: A meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews , 38 , 3-16.
