REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder

byThe Center for Sleep Medicine

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.

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.

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

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 fullSleep Talking, or talking out loud in one’s 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.

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 Parkinson’s or another disease later in life.