Sleeping well is essential for people with epilepsy to avoid seizures. So much so that according to scientific evidence, sleep deprivation along with stress and the menstrual cycle are the main factors that can precipitate an episode.
According to Spanish Federation of Sleep Medicine Societies (FESMES)sleep deprivation acts as the engine of seizures in 30% of people with epilepsy, a disease whose International Day is commemorated today, February 13, and which is characterized by a continued predisposition to the appearance of episodes accompanied by cognitive, psychological and social neurobiological consequences.
Its prevalence in Europe is 0.7%, which represents some six million inhabitants, which in Spain number between 300,000 and 400,000, and in the world it has an incidence rate of 61.44 people per 100,000 inhabitants per year. according to figures from the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN).
The Spanish Federation of Epilepsy (Fede) provides similar data, around 350,000 people, of whom 29,000 are under 15 years of age, although it indicates on its website that there is no official patient registry, with which the prevalence stands at almost 0.8% of the total. of the population (8 cases per 1,000 inhabitants).
More figures from the SEN: Life expectancy is reduced between 2 and 10 years with a mortality rate of two to three times that of the general population, with the total cost of epilepsy in Europe being 20 billion euros by year.
Furthermore, heto World Health Organization (WHO) indicates, in its measurement of the global burden of diseases in the world, that epilepsy is the second neurological pathology in years of life potentially lost or lived with disability.
Try to keep regular hours
FESMES provides two pieces of advice that it considers basic to control epileptic seizures and which are, on the one hand, trying to maintain regular sleep schedules and, on the other, trying not to sleep less than seven hours a night.
“If there can be eight, even better,” says the vice president of FESMES, Carles Gaig.
In this sense, Gaig, who is a neurologist at the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, affirms that it is “very common” for young people to arrive on weekends who have suffered epileptic seizures after having gone out to party the night before. Something, however, that is absolutely normal at these ages, he adds.
For this reason, the neurologist insists in a statement that patients with this disease and, “very especially” those with drug-resistant epilepsy, have to pay special attention to maintaining good sleep hygiene.
Patients suffer more sleep disorders
FESMES also reveals that various investigations have shown that patients with epilepsy suffer more sleep disorders. In fact, it indicates that almost half (between 40% and 50%) have insomnia. 41% report poor sleep quality, when in the general population the percentage drops to 18.
A doctor observes a patient with sleep disorders. EFE / IMSSAdditionally, up to 16% may experience obstructive sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea is the complete or partial cessation of breathing for more than ten seconds and is usually accompanied by a decrease in oxygen saturation. This disorder prevents restful sleep, causing daytime sleepiness and chronic fatigue, among others.
In this way, the fact that an epileptic patient also has obstructive apnea can cause sleep to be disturbed and more fragmented, which can worsen epilepsy control.
“Many times, simply by adequately treating the apneas, the epilepsy improves”, assures the vice president of FESMES.
One in four have excessive sleepiness
And it is that excessive sleepiness during the day affects almost one in four patients, when in the rest of the population the prevalence ranges between 7% and 17%.
On this point, Gaig qualifies that on many occasions drowsiness is due to the adverse effects of antiepileptic drugs. “It’s not that epilepsy itself makes them drowsy,” adds the expert.
And he also points out that most patients have epileptic seizures during the day, although other less frequent ones tend to manifest themselves at night during sleep, in the form of abnormal behaviors or movements.