Hypersomnias: The Most Freqently Misdiagnosed Sleep Disorders

Hypersomnias are a category of sleep disorders characterized by excessive sleepiness, most commonly narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia... they are also frequently misdiagnosed as psychiatric disorders. Sam A. Kashani, MD, shares more about this issue.

"Studies have shown that these patients are more often incorrectly diagnosed and given a psychiatric diagnosis before they are given a sleep evaluation or sleep test to determine if they have a sleep disorder," said Kashani.

This may be a result of the subjectiveness of symptoms like sleepiness, shared Kashani. "It can be really, really difficult to determine what the threshold is for being suspicious that there might be something like narcolespy underneath."

It is also important to do away with inaccurate media portrayals of disorders like narcolepsy. Movies and television shows often wrongly portray individuals with hypersomnias like narcolepsy, showing them collapsing into a cake or other silly depictions.

"Very often, people with narcolepsy do not have uncontrollable sleep episodes and just feel very tired or fatigued," said Kashani. Within this context of inaccurate portrayals, it is easy to see how patients do not get the proper evaluation they need, or have their daytime sleepiness attributed to another disorder.

"Excessive daytime sleepiness is absolutely a symptom that you see with psychiatric disorders, but it can be a sign of a serious sleep disorder like narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia," concluded Kashani.

Dr Kashani is a board-certified sleep medicine physician who practices in Santa Monica, Porter Ranch, and Santa Clarita. He is currently president of the California Sleep Society and is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.