Insomnia in the Patients With Traumatic Brain Injuries

Behzad Saberi

Medical Research, Esfahan, Iran

*Correspondence to: Dr. Behzad Saberi, Medical Research, Esfahan, Iran.

Copyright © 2020 Dr. Behzad Saberi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Introduction
Patients with traumatic brain injuries suffer from various problems including insomnia. This is a brief review on the presence of insomnia in this patients group.

Chronic inability to fall and remain asleep adequately at night and consequently daily dysfunctioning which is defined as insomnia, can be seen in the patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries. In two studies, the prevalence of insomnia in the patients with traumatic brain injuries or head and neck injuries (Whiplash injuries), was about 30 and 50 percent respectively. Increased amounts of awakening at night and longer required time to get back to sleep, can be seen in the patients with traumatic brain injuries specifically ones with mild injuries and concomitant mood problems like anxiety and depression and also ones whom suffering from pain and fatigue syndromes. Overall, the prevalence of insomnia in the patients with traumatic brain injuries can be widely ranged from 5 to 80 percent according to one study. Overestimation of the amount of insomnia in the patients with traumatic brain injuries which is done by the patients themselves, is the factor which should be of notice during evaluating the amounts of insomnia in these patient groups. Objective sleep measurement methods like polysomnography should be used to determine the exact amounts of insomnia in these patient groups. Such subjective measurements can reveal the amount of overestimation of the insomnia, which is usually reported by the patients with traumatic brain injuries. Post-traumatic insomnia is very much related to co-morbid problems specifically psychiatric and psychologic ones like anxiety and depression. Using hypnotic medications and specifically psychological interventions like cognitive behavioral therapies, can be helpful to treat insomnia in these patient groups. Proper treatment for concomitant problems like pain syndromes, should always be of notice during making plans to treat insomnia in such patients [1-5].

Conclusion
It is important for the health care professionals to have knowledge about the presence of insomnia in the patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries to treat this pathology better during clinical practice.

Bibliography

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