Subjective symptoms in idiopathic hypersomnia: beyond excessive sleepiness.

Patients with idiopathic hypersomnia never feel fully alert despite a normal or long sleep night. The spectrum of the symptoms is insufficiently studied. We interviewed 62 consecutive patients with idiopathic hypersomnia (with a mean sleep latency lower than 8 min or a sleep time longer than 11 h) and 50 healthy controls using a questionnaire on sleep, awakening, sleepiness, alertness and cognitive, psychological and functional problems during daily life conditions.

Narcolepsy with long sleep time: a specific entity?

Background: The classical narcolepsy patient reports intense feelings of sleepiness (with/out cataplexy), normal or disrupted nighttime sleep, and takes short and restorative naps. However, with long-term monitoring, we identified some narcoleptics resembling patients with idiopathic hypersomnia.

Objective: To isolate and describe a new subtype of narcolepsy with long sleep time).

Idiopathic hypersomnia with and without long sleep time: a controlled series of 75 patients.

Objective: To characterize the clinical, psychological, and sleep pattern of idiopathic hypersomnia with and without long sleep time, and provide normative values for 24-hour polysomnography.

Setting: University Hospital.

Design: Controlled, prospective cohort.