CLINICAL ASSESSMENT OF PATIENT WITH EXESSIVE DAYTIME SLEEPINESS (EDS)

Abstract

Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is the primary concern for many patients presenting with sleep disorder and a significant public health problem. The International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-2) includes EDS as an essential feature for three diagnostic categories: narcolepsy, hypersomnia and behaviourally induced insufficient sleep syndrome. Most frequently, insufficient sleep duration is responsible for this symptom. This review will give an overview of some of the most common causes of EDS encountered in clinical practice and identify important risk factors for excessive sleepiness.

Daytime sleepiness is common but often unrecognized. As with most medical conditions, diagnosis of EDS begins with a precise history. The patient may present complaints of `tiredness' or `fatigue' rather than more specific symptoms of `sleepiness' or `drowsiness'.

Therefore in this literature research paper we have summarized the various tools that have been developed along the years to assess sleepiness more objectively and with their help to explore the different aspects and causes of the excessive sleepiness. Always having in consideration that investigators must recognize the limitations of the available methods and select them according to the clinical problem being addressed.

     The purpose of this research paper, just like any kind of scientific writing, is to get the researchers, psychology students, readers, etc., up to date about the clinical assessment of patient with excessive daytime sleepiness.  Especially this paper will be in much use for those who tend to assess or evaluate a patient suffering from EDS.

Having in consideration the difficulties researchers face whenever they tru to approach to patients complaining about excessive daytime sleepiness, especially in our country, North Macedonia, where this sleep disorder hasn’t yet been studied much due to the lack of cases complaining with the symptoms regarding the problem, we thought that a definition paper which describes facts, provides information and objective approaches how to determine whether the person is suffering from EDS, will be in much use of clinical practitioners.

In this research paper is completed a literature review where we have given an outline of the empirical activities by high-ranked psychology researchers around the world, who have contributed in better understanding and broadening our knowledge for the topic discussed in this paper.