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Many parents go to the specialist looking for an explanation for their child's sleep disorders, and their surprise is great when they actually diagnose an epileptic seizure.
And it is that many times the first symptoms of epilepsy are manifested during the moment of rest, through sleep disorders. Obviously, it does not mean that all children with sleep disorders have epilepsy. Find out here what are the most common sleep disorders in children with epilepsy.
Don't go thinking that because your child has a sleep disorder he may have epilepsy. It only happens in certain cases. In fact, sleep disorders are very common during childhood. It is estimated that they can affect up to 30% of children between 6 months and 5 years.
However, epilepsy, which appears during childhood and adolescence, is not a mere sleep disorder. These disorders are just part of epilepsy, which is reality an abnormal activity of the electrical functioning of certain groups of cortical neurons lodged in the brain. It does bring with it sleep disorders. These are the most common sleep disorders in children with epilepsy within the what are parasomnias (phenomena that disturb the child's rest and that normally appear in the first phase of sleep, the REM phase):
1. Sleepwalking: it usually occurs more frequently in children between 4 and 6 years old. It consists of the automatic repetition during sleep of typical motor behaviors of the waking period. Some of the triggers of this disorder include excessive fatigue, high anxiety and even a lack of sleep hygiene. It usually ends with adolescence.
2. Night terrors: It also usually begins during the 4-6 years and ends at a somewhat younger age than sleepwalking. During these episodes there is an abrupt awakening accompanied by other signs such as tachycardia, hyperventilation, sweating ... They appear during the deep slow sleep phase, without the child being aware of such awakenings.
3. Night bruxism: It is a non-voluntary habit that causes some children, preferably during adolescence, to clench their jaws or grind their teeth during sleep, rubbing or sliding them, without any functional objective.
4. Rhythmic movements related to sleep: Repetitive movements that affect certain parts of the body such as the head, trunk, extremities or the whole body, which usually appear at the beginning of sleep or on superficial ground when the child, usually under five years of age, is falling asleep.
5. Nocturnal enuresis: It consists of urinary incontinence (more than three times a month) that affects the child (over five years old) at night.
6. Daytime sleepiness: it can be a consequence of unrefreshing sleep. It is defined as the inability to stay awake and alert throughout the day with long-lasting episodes that cause involuntary periods of drowsiness or sleep.
In addition, children with epilepsy have more difficulty falling asleep, insomnia (the quality of sleep also decreases) and daytime sleepiness.
Epilepsy is a chronic disease, but it can be controlled in the long term. If it is detected in its early stages, there will be a better prognosis and can be controlled without the need for drugs in adulthood.
Source: Enrique Noé, neurologist and director of research at NEURORHB, neurorehabilitation service at Vithas Nisa Hospitals in Valencia and Seville.
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