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 Vol. 21 No. 1, January 2009
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AAP Grand Rounds 21:5 (2009)
© 2009 American Academy of Pediatrics

NEUROLOGY

Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Narcolepsy Reviewed

Source: Peterson PC, Husain AM. Pediatric narcolepsy. Brain Dev. 2008;30(10):609–623; doi:10.1016/j.braindev.2008.02.004[Medline]

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The authors from Duke University Medical Center and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, NC, review the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric narcolepsy.


PICO

Question: What are the clinical and laboratory features of narcolepsy in children?

Question type: Descriptive

Study design: Narrative review

 

Narcolepsy is a disorder of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep characterized by excessive daytime somnolence and associated with sleep paralysis, hypnagogic (when falling asleep) and hypnopompic (when awakening) hallucinations, and cataplexy (temporary paralysis of cranial and somatic musculature).

The prevalence of narcolepsy is 0.05% in the US and Europe, 0.18% in Japan, and 0.002% in Israel. The disease is more common in males than females. Occurrence is predominantly sporadic. There is only 25–31% concordance in twin studies. The etiology is unknown although one hypothesis is that it is a neurodegenerative syndrome with an autoimmune component. In secondary (symptomatic) narcolepsy, cases meet criteria for idiopathic narcolepsy, but symptoms are . . . [Full Text of this Article]

J. Gordon Millichap, MD, FAAP
Neurology, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, IL.