Sleep medicine
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Sleep problems affect more than half of patients receiving dialysis and are associated with increased risk of mortality, cardiovascular events, depression and impaired functioning and quality of life. Symptoms such as fatigue and exhaustion may be attributed to sleep problems or sleep disorders, as well as the burden of kidney disease and treatment. This study aims to describe the patient perspectives on the reasons, impact and management of sleep problems in dialysis. ⋯ The treatment and symptom burden of dialysis disrupts and deprives patients of sleep, which leads to overwhelming and uncontrollable exhaustion. Better management of symptoms and effective strategies to manage sleep routines may improve sleep quality for better overall health in patients receiving dialysis.
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Arousal Disorders (DoA) include Confusional Arousals, Sleepwalking and Sleep Terrors. DoA diagnosis is mainly clinical but no validated questionnaires exist for DoA screening according to the criteria of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders, Third Edition. Recently our group proposed the Arousal Disorders Questionnaire (ADQ) as a new diagnostic tool for DoA diagnosis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the ADQ in a sleep and epilepsy center. ⋯ The ADQ showed good accuracy in screening patients with DoA in a sleep and epilepsy center setting. Diagnostic criteria related to cognition and episode recall reduced ADQ sensitivity, therefore a better definition of these criteria is required, especially in adults.