Sleep Education

Sleep Disorders

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The need for Sleep Education

• Sleep disorders are extremely common.

• Sleep disorders are associated with significant morbidity & mortality, with an implicit burden on primary care.

• Patients with sleep problems, their partners & families have poor quality of lives & significant employment & social problems.

• There are many (87) different types of different sleep disorders.

• Medical & nursing staff receive little education in Sleep Medicine.

What is the significance of this?

Despite many remarkable advances in the study of disorders of sleep... this knowledge has not been well disseminated to the public nor to the physicians caring for them. Thus, although our knowledge base has increased exponentially, sleep disorders remain a significant & under treated public health problem.

Recent surveys in the US & UK have shown the meagre content of medical & other professional education about sleep & its disorders. This must mean that many treatment opportunities are lost to the serious disadvantage of the large section of the population who suffer from sleep problems, not least children who are physically ill or have a learning disability. Prof Greg Stores Department of Psychiatry, Park Hospital, Oxford, UK 1998

• Primary Care teams have insufficient knowledge & skills to recognise, diagnose or treat most sleep disorders.

• The UK has very few specialist sleep centres & unlike other countries provides no specialist medical or nurse Sleep Education or training courses.

The following pages do not attempt to describe the range cause, diagnosis or treatment of the many sleep disorders.

Click on the links below:

Most sleep disorders are undiagnosed & patients are not treated.

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.