Children's awakening diseases usually have no mental or psychological problems; Adults are often diagnosed mentally or psychologically, but even if you treat his mental illness, waking the patient will not get better. Children's awakening disorder usually has no memory of dreams, and even if there is, it is fragmented and has no complete story; But adults often have living dreams.
Multi-sleep physiological EEG usually shows that patients wake up from deep sleep, and the brain waves after waking up can still be in deep sleep, or become shallow sleep, or even awake.
Sleepwalking, also known as sleepwalking, is common in children after the age of 4. Its characteristic is that in the first third of the night, children sit up from sleep, open their eyes and walk aimlessly, but the pace is slow and they can avoid obstacles. Sometimes they fiddle with some utensils like kitchen utensils or water scoops in the bathroom, and they are disheveled and mutter. If you try to wake him up, he may become confused and upset.
Usually children can go back to bed without any difficulty, fall asleep again soon, and wake up the next morning with no memory of what happened last night. There are few reports of sleepwalking children dreaming, even if there are, they are fragmented, incomplete and have no complete story. But adult sleepwalkers often have living dreams. 30% children with night terrors have sleepwalking at the same time. There is no difference between men and women who sleepwalk, but family history is common. According to statistics, about 65,438+05% people had at least one sleepwalking experience in childhood, and the sleepwalking peak appeared at the age of 4 to 8, and gradually disappeared after the age of 65,438+05. Only about 0.5% adults occasionally sleepwalked. Inducing factors include lack of sleep, fever, fatigue, taking sleeping pills and some antipsychotic drugs. Mental illness has nothing to do with sleepwalking in children, but it is related to adults. It's just that sleepwalking continues even after treating adult mental symptoms. When a child sleepwalks, he should be taken back to bed to sleep. Don't try to wake him up, and don't tell or blame the sick child the next morning, which will make the child feel depressed and anxious. If the attacks are really frequent, you should ask a doctor for help.
Most adult sleepwalking stems from sleepwalking that has not been completely relieved in childhood. Of course, adult sleepwalking can also happen to adults who have never sleepwalked before, and most of them have mental and psychological problems. Therefore, besides drug control, psychotherapy also plays a very important role in adult sleepwalking.
Sleepwalking, also known as sleepwalking, refers to getting up, walking indoors or outdoors, or doing some simple activities, being in a mixed state of sleep and sobriety. Such patients usually get up and walk in repeated sleep for several minutes to half an hour. During the attack, the sleepwalker suddenly stared at his eyes during sleep, but didn't look at anything, and then got out of bed to do some activities under the condition of vague consciousness. When walking out of bed, although it is dark around, patients usually walk freely without touching anything. It is understood that sleepwalkers' eyes are half-open or full-open, their walking posture is the same as usual, and they can even carry out some complicated activities. Sleepwalking is a strange state of consciousness. Patients seem to live only in their own world and lose contact with others. Their emotions sometimes fluctuate greatly, and they even talk a lot of nonsense, which is difficult for others to understand. When sleepwalking, the patient's expression is dull, and he basically has no response to the stimulation of others, so it is difficult to be forcibly awakened. Although the patient is unconscious, his actions seem to have a purpose, and he seems to be engaged in a meaningful job. After the attack, I can automatically go back to bed and go back to sleep. Sleepwalking usually occurs in the deep sleep period of the first 1/3 sleep, and wakes up the next morning, completely unaware of what happened at night and completely forgetting. The disease is more common in boys aged 6~ 12.
In fact, sleepwalking has nothing to do with dreaming, because according to EEG, sleepwalking is in a deep sleep stage, not a rapid eye movement sleep stage, and people will not dream at this stage, so sleepwalking may be more in line with the facts. There are different opinions about the causes of sleepwalking, and it is still unknown. It is estimated that there may be the following four aspects:
1. Psychosocial factors Some children sleepwalking is related to psychosocial factors. Such as daily life disorder, environmental stress, anxiety and fear; Family disharmony, bad parent-child relationship, nervous study and poor exam results are all related to sleepwalking.
2. Too deep sleep because sleepwalking often occurs in the first 1/3 deep sleep period of sleep, and various factors that deepen sleep, such as overwork during the day, lack of sleep caused by staying up late for several days, taking sleeping pills before going to bed, etc. , can induce sleepwalking.
3. Family investigation of genetic factors shows that sleepwalking patients have more positive family history, and the comorbidity rate of identical twins is 6 times higher than that of identical twins, which shows that the disease has certain relationship with genetic factors.
4. Developmental factors Because the disease mostly occurs in childhood, it gradually stops with the increase of age, indicating that sleepwalking may be related to the delayed development of cerebral cortex.
Next, let's look at a typical case of sleepwalking.
Mei, a 9-year-old male, came to the children's mental health clinic many times because she got up after sleeping. One day in the summer vacation, after watching TV, the child went to bed and fell asleep. After about 1 hour, he suddenly got up, opened the door and went to the fifth floor to hold his classmate's door. After a while, he went home to sleep. The next day, I denied it. Later, I often get up by myself, drink water, open drawers to get things, or go to my mother and touch her with my hands. I mumbled something, ignoring other people's words and staring blankly. A few minutes later, I went to bed by myself. I went to the doctor two days ago, and it was 1 1 o'clock. The child suddenly got up, lifted the bucket, walked down the fourth floor, and fell 100 meters away. The next day he denied it.
Finally, talk about the treatment of sleepwalking, including two aspects:
(1) psychotherapy
1. Supportive psychotherapy mostly occurs in the growth and development of boys aged 6~ 12. On the basis of excluding organic factors, it is mostly related to social and psychological factors, life rhythm and growth and development factors. Therefore, first of all, we should explain the characteristics and causes of the disease to family members and patients, reduce the psychological burden of patients and their families, and avoid the anxiety and tension caused by children's occasional sleepwalking behavior, and even aggravate sleepwalking symptoms. Explain clearly to family and children that as long as the number of attacks is small, treatment is generally not needed, but care should be paid when attacks occur to prevent accidents. Children who are having an attack should be woken up or put to bed. Generally, with the increase of age, the symptoms of children's sleepwalking will gradually be alleviated and finally completely relieved.
2. Sleep hygiene education reasonably arranges work and rest time, cultivates good sleep habits and daily life rules, avoids excessive fatigue and high tension, pays attention to going to bed early and getting up early, and exercises to adjust the sleep rhythm to the best state; Secondly, we should pay attention to the control of the sleeping environment, close the doors and windows before going to bed, and collect all kinds of dangerous goods to avoid getting lost when sleepwalking attacks, or causing incidents that hurt ourselves and others; Third, we should pay attention to the protective medical system for children with this disease, and don't talk about the seriousness of their illness and sleepwalking in front of children, so as not to increase their tension, anxiety and fear.