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Sleep Disorders Home |
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Most sleep disorders are undiagnosed & patients are not treated. It is estimated that sleep disorders affect approximately 770,000 people in the United Kingdom, but despite the number of sufferers there is no mention of sleep disorders in the national health service plan or other Government health guidelines. House of Commons Minutes of 10.02.2004 It is estimated that around 300,000 people in the UK suffer from Sleep Apnoea yet less than 30,000 have been diagnosed & treated. In the UK there are approximately 2,000 diagnosed narcoleptics, yet it is believed there are probably as many as 20,000. It is estimated that more than a million people in the UK suffer from the Restless Legs Syndrome associated with a sleep disturbance but many GPs are failing to recognise the syndrome.
One in three people in the
UK
suffer with insomnia Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Syndrome. (External Link)
The invisible epidemic of sleep apnoea. The impact of sleep apnoea & snoring on sleep & health in the individual & for the public should not be ignored.
According to the National
Commission on Sleep Disorders Research: “Forty million Americans are
chronically ill with various sleep disorders... Sleep apnoea alone is the
cause of excessive daytime sleepiness experienced by almost 20 million
Americans... Overwhelming evidence from testimony & specific surveys
suggests that the vast majority of Americans with sleep disorders remain
undiagnosed & untreated”. (Report of the National Commission on Sleep
Disorders Research, Wake up America: A National Sleep Alert, Executive
Summary & Report, January 1993), (hereafter cited as NCSDR). Cost Justification for Diagnosis & Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea. (If the above link does not work, download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader by clicking on the logo) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Click on the links below:
Most sleep disorders are undiagnosed & patients are not treated. (Current Page). There is an unnecessarily high death rate directly attributable to sleep disorders. Co-morbidity caused by sleep disorders causes a huge burden on our health care system.
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