Sleep Disorders and Their Classification -An Overview

摘要

There are numerous sleep disorders. Many of these disorders remain poorly recognized by the general practitioners but may also be largely ignored by the respiratory physicians even though they manage patients with sleep-disordered breathing. It is nevertheless critical to be aware of the diversity of the sleep disorders. Sleep disorders represent a major challenge in terms of differential diagnosis.This is particularly relevant to excessive daytime sleepiness. On the other hand, very common conditions such as insomnia or restless legs syndrome are still neglected or ignored by the vast majority of the medical community. Thus, expanding the knowledge on both respiratory and nonrespira-tory sleep disorders may contribute to improve sleep medicine quality amongst respiratory physicians. In this overview, sleep disorders have been described according to the 2nd International Classification of Sleep Disorders published in 2005, i.e. insomnia, sleep-disordered breathing, hypersomnias, parasom-nias, circadiandisorders and movement disorders. Lastly, excessive daytime sleepiness being a major concern for the respiratory physicians dealing with sleep, the differential diagnosis of excessive daytime sleepiness has been further detailed.