For this essay, I chose the article called 'Nightmare Disorder and REM Sleep Behavior Disorder in Inflammatory Arthritis: Possibility Beyond Neurodegeneration' by Luca Baldelli because I would like to learn more about sleep behavior disorders in general, and the cases found due to sleep behavior disorders.
Back when I was in high school, I never slept late like the other kids at my school. I would sleep at 10 o’clock and wake up at 6 in the morning to get ready for school, and when I got home, I would sit on my bed while doing homework and accidentally fall asleep till 7 or 8 at night and realize I had fallen asleep. I did not know why I fell asleep when I came home from school since I had at least 8 hours of sleep, which is how much a normal person should be having every night. As time went by, during high school, I had trouble falling asleep during the night. I would stay up till 3 to 4 not knowing why I could not sleep. I did not know much about sleeping disorders, but I became interested in sleeping disorders when I started to have sleeping problems during high school, and which made me more interested was when I took an AP psychology class and learned a few things about sleeping disorders, and I picked this topic to get to know more about sleeping disorders in general.
Sleeping disorders relate to healthcare because studies show that insufficient sleep increases a person's risk of developing serious medical conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, which have been associated with a shortened lifespan. The objective of this experiment is meant for patients who have inflammatory arthritis (IA) to test out if it messes up with their REM sleep behavior which is the protoconsciousness theory and 'if RBD could be an internal red flag signaling a fluctuating state of inflammation based on the theory of 'protoconsciousness'' (Baldelli et al., 2019, para. 1). The protoconsciousness theory is the continuity of consciousness throughout life, especially during REM sleep dreaming. This experiment was conducted from April 2014 to November 2016, and they recruited 103 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of IA, attending the patient clinic of medicine and rheumatology unit and with the ages between 20 and 75 years old. They had to have a history of “alcohol or drug abuse/dependence, chronic use of antidepressants at the time of the visit, and documented neurological diseases” (Baldelli et al., 2019, para. 10). After they all underwent neurological evaluations, a neurologist investigated RBD and REM sleep parasomnias, and all patients signed the informed consent form. A neurologist investigated the temporal relationship between RBD onset and IA activity. “Sleep quality was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, while the risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) was evaluated with the Berlin questionnaire. Beck Depression Inventory-II and State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory investigated depression and anxiety” (Baldelli et al., 2019, para. 2).
The results of the experiment had a “mean age of 53.7 ± 14.6 years, 65% were women; 57.3% were in a clinically active phase of IA” (Baldelli et al., 2019, para. 3). Throughout the whole process, 31 patients had positive results of nightmare disorder, 8 patients had repetitive sleep paralysis, 65 patients reported poor sleep quality, 25 resulted in high risk of OSAS, and finally 32 patients scored positively for depression or anxiety.
After the experiment, 88 patients underwent a specific treatment for IA. 42 were in therapy with standard diseases such as drugs. 28 used biological and 18 used both, but patients who did not do the anti-inflammatory therapy showed more usage of steroids in RA patients. This experiment did not conclude whether the IA was the result of REM sleep disorders. I think they did a great job on the experiment, but it did not result in knowing if the REM sleep behavior is the effect of inflammatory arthritis.
In conclusion, to healthcare, there are no results in this experiment, but it still explains that REM sleep disorders with inflammatory arthritis do not result in REM sleep disorders.