Insomnia: Diagnosis and Treatment
Despite its spread, insomnia remains poorly recognized by physicians and is often under-diagnosed or not treated properly.
An estimated 60% of insomniacs have never spoken of sleep disorders with your doctor. The lack of recognition and non-medical treatment of insomnia have a significant impact and social performance by significantly reducing the patient’s employment and generally reducing the quality of life.
Insomnia is also the primary cause of many conditions also seen in emergency departments. Psycho-physical ailments, digestive disorders, headache, trauma and road accidents can also be 8 times more frequent in subjects with irregular sleep.
The term insomnia defines the subjective experience of inadequate sleep or poor quality. Insomnia is characterized by one or more of these indicators Clubs:
* Difficulty in initiating sleep;
* Difficulty in maintaining continuity of sleep;
* Waking up early in the morning;
* Non-refreshing sleep.
These difficulties occur despite there are opportunities and favorable circumstances to sleep.
In addition to indicators night, also daytime symptoms can be identified:
* General feeling of fatigue or malaise, headache, gastrointestinal symptoms not attributable to other causes, if not to “sleep loss”;
* Reduced energy and motivation to perform routine duties;
* Difficulties in attention, concentration or memory deficits;
* Easy to make mistakes at work or road accidents;
* Alterations to the “functions” of industry;
* Mood disorders and irritability;
* Daytime sleepiness.
Insomnia can be due to lifestyle habits that impede the maintenance of adequate supervision during the day and night sleep. Some eating habits, like eating too much food and alcohol or beverages containing caffeine (coffee, tea, cola drinks “energizing”) may be discomfort. Other disturbances may be the afternoon nap, prolonged exposure in the evening light sources (TV, computers), or intense physical or intellectual activities just before bedtime.
In any case, avoid do-it-yourself measures, such as using drugs or recommended by friends and acquaintances, to avoid paying too high a price as the chronicity of the disorder.
Only a minority of cases the specialist needs. Most situations, however, can be effectively managed by the family doctor. To this end the Italian Society of General Medicine and the Italian Association of Sleep Medicine recently issued a practical guide for the management of insomnia, a flexible tool for your doctor to properly diagnose and treat insomnia in practice ambulatory every day.