Two Cases of Narcoleptic Patients with Sleep Paralysis as a Chief Complaint
Sleep Medicine Research January 11, 2019 Yong Won Choi, Ji Hyun Song, Tae Won Kim et al.
Sleep paralysis is a dissociated state where REM-sleep muscle atonia occurs while awake. Two men aged 22 and 19 diagnosed with narcolepsy presented with sleep paralysis. Clinicians should consider stress, trauma, hereditary factors, physical health, sleep disorders, and psychiatric conditions. Prevalence of sleep paralysis in narcolepsy patients is 20–50%. When patients present with sleep paralysis, clinicians should examine for narcoleptic symptoms and, if needed, conduct multiple sleep latency tests to confirm narcolepsy.