REM Sleep Disorder Treatment

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REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder
by The Center for Sleep Medicine
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What is REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder

• Normal sleep for most people includes a period of
  rapid eye movement or REM sleep where your brain
  is active, yet you are in a state of paralysis
  even as you dream.
• When you are in REM sleep, while your body is at
  rest, you normally experience irregular
  breathing, rapid eye movements, increased blood
  pressure, and a loss of muscle tone.

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Symptoms

• People transition from being awake to an REM
  stage before falling into a deep sleep by
  exhibiting behaviours such as talking, yelling,
  punching, kicking.
• They may sleepwalk as they act out dreams that
  are usually violent.
• These symptoms can not only disrupt sleep, but
  can lead to injury of yourself or a sleeping
  partner.

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Causes

• Doctors are unsure of the cause.
• In opinion of Doctors the distinctions between
  the different stages of sleep break down so that
  the muscle paralysis experienced by most dreamers
  does not take place. 
• Before the stage where they act out violent
  dreams, those with REM disorders may talk in
  their sleep or twitch for years before the full
  onset of the REM Sleep Disorder

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Conditions Similar to REM Sleep Disorder

• Sleep Eating Disorders, or binge eating while
  partly awake.
• Bedwetting, or failure to wake up when the
  bladder is full
• Sleep Talking, or talking out loud in ones
  sleep.
• Sleep Paralysis, or the inability to move your
  body when falling asleep or waking up.
• Sleep Hallucinations, or perceived events that
  seem real, which often occur between sleeping and
  waking.

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Treatment for REM Sleep Disorder

• REM sleep behaviour disorder often require drugs
  such as clonazepam to mimic sleep paralysis.
• Even when these Sleep Disorder treatments prove
  successful at calming down these sleep
  behaviours, an at-risk person can still develop
  Parkinsons or another disease later in life. 

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