Talks:
Two cases series of Narcoleptic patients with Sleep Paralysis as a Chief Complaint
Name:
Yongwon Choi
Position:
Doctor
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry
St. Vincent’s hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea
Email:
Photo:
Research Interests:
Narcolepsy、Hypersomnolence、Sleep Medicine
Selected Publications:
Abstract:
Sleep paralysis is considered as a dissociated state during which Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep related muscle atonia appears while a subject is fully awake. We present a 22-year old man and a 19-year old man diagnosed with narcolepsy who previously visited our clinic with phenomenon of sleep paralysis. When a patient is brought to the clinic with sleep paralysis, various physiologic and medical conditions such as stress, trauma, hereditary factors, physical health, sleep disorders and other psychiatric disorders are taken into consideration. Prevalence of sleep paralysis in narcolepsy patients is known to be 20–50%. Therefore, it is necessary that clinicians should carefully examine the presence or absence of narcoleptic symptoms when dealing with patients with sleep paralysis and should conduct the Multiple Sleep Latency Tests (MSLT) confirm the diagnosis of narcolepsy if necessary.