A clinical analysis of seven patients with narcolepsy

Objective To explore clinical characteristics of patients with narcolepsy.Methods Seven patients with narcolepsy were analyzed respectively.Results Seven patients had no definite inducement and positive familial history.All patients manifested with excessive daytime sleepiness,cataplexy appeared in 2 cases,hypnagogic hallucination in 6 cases and sleep paralysis in 3 cases,only 1 patients with all the four typical narcolepstic syndromes.The first symptoms was excessive daytime sleepiness in 4 cases,cataplexy associated with excessive daytime sleepiness in 2 cases,sleep snoring associated with excessive daytime sleepiness in 1 cases.Five cases were admitted to hospital for excessive daytime sleepiness,1 case for cataplexy,and 1 case for snoring.All the patients showed no specific changes in the chemical examinations and imageological examinations.Overnight polysomnography(PSG) and multiple sleep latency test(MSLT)were done in all the 7 patients.The PSG results showed the sleep latency was less than 10 minutes and the rapid eye movement sleep latency was less than 20 minutes in all cases.Mild obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome(OSAHS) was detected in 1 case with snoring showed,the rest did not show sleep apnea and nocturnal hypoxemia.The MSLT results showed the average sleep latency was less than 5 minutes in all cases,and five out of the 7 patients had two or more sleep onset rapid eye movement(REM) periods(SOREMPs).Two cases had no SOREMPs,but their mean REM sleep latency were less than 10 minutes.Conclusions It might be an effective method to make early correct diagnosis and reduce the rate of the misdiagnosis and mistreatment by studying the clinical characteristics of narcolepsy.Overnight PSG and MSLT might be useful in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of atypical narcolepsy.