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Friday June 8 5:33 PM ET

Sleepwalking, Terrors Linked to Lack of Sleep

By Bruce Dixon

CHICAGO (Reuters Health)

Encouraging children to get a little more sleep could help eliminate sleep terrors and sleepwalking, a researcher reported here at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Dr. Brett R. Kuhn of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Pediatric Sleep Clinic treated 10 children, who ranged in age from 2 to 9.

One, a 7-year-old girl, jumped out of bed screaming in panic at about the same time every night. A 9-year-old boy regularly rose from his bed and climbed out a window, once sustaining injuries that required surgery.

These otherwise healthy children suffered from sleep terrors and sleepwalking, related conditions called parasomnias. Though researchers believe there is some genetic predisposition to parasomnias, Kuhn's research suggests this group of disorders can be alleviated by increasing total sleep time.

``Those children who increased their sleep time--in some cases by as little as one-half hour per day--demonstrated rapid and impressive reductions in the frequency of sleep terrors and sleepwalking events,'' said Kuhn, a pediatric psychologist.

``With a couple of children I did nothing more than add short, daily naps, or moved their bedtime ahead a little,'' he explained.

But Kuhn noted most had to be treated for behavioral disorders perpetuated by sleeping with their parents, lack of bedtime discipline and other sleep distractions that have been shown to undermine sleep.

``Their parents wanted them to sleep in their own bed, so we taught them to initiate sleep independently so that they didn't have to have the assistance of the parent,'' the researcher said. ``We also made the kids' bedrooms more sleep-compatible by eliminating televisions and video games.''

As a result, 9 of the 10 children successfully increased their total sleep time an average of 1 hour and 25 minutes, he reported.

Kuhn added that four of the children were previously taking prescription medications for their disorders, and all four were successfully tapered off those drugs. ``Increasing total sleep time appears to be a promising intervention for managing frequent sleepwalking and sleep terrors in young children,'' he concluded.