ABSTRACT

We here aimed to investigate our pediatric group of patients to reveal the comorbidity of epilepsy and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnias and their clinical and polysomnographic characteristics.

We retrospectively investigated all patients at the age of 18 or younger internalized within the last two years patients for a full night polysomnographic evaluation in our Sleep and Wake Disorders Unit. The diagnosis of epilepsy was made on the basis of clinical findings and electroencephalography findings; and the diagnosis of NREM parasomnia was made according to the International Classification of Sleep Disorders.

A total of 29 male (67.4%) and 14 female (32.6%) patients were investigated. Nineteen (44.2%) out of 43 patients were diagnosed as epilepsy. Nine (47.4%) of the patients with epilepsy also had delta-alpha paroxysms (DAP) and partial wakefulness during sleep – which are the characteristics polysomnographic features of NREM parasomnias.

We observed a high comorbidity of epilepsy and NREM parasomnia in pediatric group of patients investigated in our sleep center. The arousal parasomnias are increasingly being reported to be more common in patients with epilepsy, probably due to shared common physiopathological mechanism characterized by pathological arousals originating in abnormal thalamo-cortical circuits produced by the central pattern generators.

Keywords: Epilepsy, NREM parasomnias, pediatric age group