Narcolepsy: Mercer County Community College (Research Paper Sample)

Narcolepsy
Student’s Name
Mercer County Community College
Narcolepsy is defined as a chronic mental disorder that makes individuals suffer from the sleepiness and makes the individuals have a poor control of the sleep-wake cycles. This neurological disorder affects the brain and takes away or contributes to the deterioration of the functions of the brain to regulate sleep. People who are suffering from the condition have a tendency of experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness and uncontrollable experiences of falling asleep during the daytime. The attacks of sleep for these individuals can any time of the day regardless of what they are doing. The attacks that these people suffer from may last from few second to minutes. The condition affects the daily activities that people handle. These individuals unwillingly fall asleep when they are at schools, playing games, and even when driving. The condition can be symbolized by Cataplexy whereby the muscles lose tone while the person is awake and they are unable to move. Other victims may have hallucinations as well as paralysis before falling asleep and after people wake up. The purpose of this paper is to expound on the causes and the treatment of the Narcolepsy condition.
Narcolepsy is a condition that occurs when the system that regulates the arousal, sleep, and the transition that occurs between these states in human beings. Narcoleptic people do not spend large proportions of their time in sleep than the normal people as some people think. Uncontrollable episodes of sleep and drowsiness during daytime makes these people have poor sleep quality that involves sleep disorders and frequent waking at the nighttime sleep. In most cases, normal sleep lasts for about eight hours which comprises four to six cycles of sleep. The sleep cycle is the segment of the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) that is usually followed by a period of rapid eye movements (REM). NREM is further sub-divided following the frequency of the waves that are received from the brain. Dreams occur when people have REM sleep because at this period there is increased brain activity and a temporary paralysis of muscle that are tasked with the control of the body movements and posture. The people suffering from narcolepsy get to the REM sleep stage within few minutes after falling into sleep (Goswami, 2016).
Narcolepsy is a condition that affects all people regardless of their gender. Most of the persons suffering from the condition start showing the symptoms from childhood or the period of their adolescence. However, some of the patients suffering from the condition start showing the symptoms in later days of their life. Narcolepsy is a condition that lasts for a lifetime. The condition has various symptoms and other related conditions. The major symptoms of the condition are sleep paralysis and excessive daytime sleepiness. People with narcolepsy experience the Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS). The EDS is known to interfere with the normal functioning of an individual thus affecting the activities that are taking place during daytime. The condition brings about the lack of energy, extreme exhaustion, and depressed mood. These people also suffer from the unavoidable feelings of sleep and the fatigue and drowsiness subsides in the maximum of two hours. Narcoleptic people are prone to automatic behaviors that lead to “microsleeps” with some lasting for seconds. Most of the patients get these episodes of sleep when they are engaged in some habitual activities such as writing, driving, and typing. In fact, they are not capable of recalling whether the episodes happened because they are impaired. However, the episode may lead to the deterioration of the neatness of the handwriting, forgetting where they placed their items. Additionally, the condition might cause tragedy if it happens while a person has been driving (Baumann, 2011).
Cataplexy is defined as the deterioration of muscle tone that occurs suddenly when a person is awake and makes them feel weak in what they are doing, and they end up losing the ability to control their muscles voluntarily. These attacks vary in the frequency in which they do happen and may at times make an individual unable to move. Hallucinations result from the sleep paralysis and may occur while people are asleep, waking, or at the period when they are falling asleep. The contents resulting from the hallucinations are primarily visual. Disrupted nocturnal sleep is another symptom that may reveal that an individual is suffering from the condition. The sleep is in most cases disrupted by cases of insomnia, sleep talking, and periodic leg movements among others. Obesity is another resultant feature of narcolepsy, and there is a sudden weight gain for the individuals who are suffering from the condition although the same can always be prevented from treatment that is active. If the condition of narcolepsy is undiagnosed, or even treated, it usually makes interference to the cognitive functions, psychological functions, and social functions of an individual as well as affecting the development of an individual. Additionally, failure to treat the condition can weaken social activities as well as the academic abilities (Chokroverty, 2009).
There are various causes of the condition that are known. Neurotransmitter hypocretin is a chemical that is produced by the neurons, and they assist in the regulation of the biological processes as well as facilitating communication. The people suffering from narcolepsy have low levels of the neurotransmitter hypocretin that are involved in the promotion of wakefulness in individuals. The decrease in the level of hypocretin has been greatly correlated to the diet, history of various infections, brain injuries, and a close contact with the toxin such as the ones found in the pesticides, and the brain strokes or tumors.
Narcolepsy cases are random and in most cases they occur in individuals from families that have no history of the narcolepsy disorder. However, in some incidences, over ten percent of the persons suffering from narcolepsy usually have close relatives who are showing similar symptoms. In rare cases, the narcolepsy condition is connected with the genetic defections that might contribute to the low production of the molecules of hypocretin. The relatives of the individuals suffering from the condition have a high likelihood and risk of developing the disorder as opposed to the persons from the families that do not have their members suffering from the condition (Flygare, 2013).
Cataplexy is another cause of the narcolepsy because the presence of it causes loss of the brain cells that are responsible for the production of the hypocretin. However, the major cause of the degeneration and the loss of these cells is not known although there is speculation that the autoimmune disorder in the human body causes the body immune system to attack the tissues that are healthy. The immune system of the body might be the one that is responsible for attacking the brain cells that are responsible for the production of the hypocretin thus leading to the condition of narcolepsy.
Traumatic injuries of the brain and the areas surrounding the brain may be responsible for causing these disorders especially the brain cells near the hypothalamus that are responsible for sleep. The development of the narcoleptic condition may be as a result of a brain tumor or the diseases affecting the region responsible for sleep in the brain. The changes in the hormonal levels and the stress that mostly occur during the menopause and puberty as well as the alterations in the schedule of sleep of an individual are likely to contribute to the development of narcolepsy.
The narcolepsy condition cannot be cured although symptoms of the condition can be rectified and treated through medication and changes in the lifestyle. There is no way the loss of hypocretin can be reversed. Therefore, the presence of cataplexy and the EDS are controlled through the use of certain medication. Food and Drug Administration, a body in U.S., approved the use of Sodium Oxybate and Modafinil drugs for the treatment of the narcolepsy (Lisak, 2009).
Counseling and other support groups can be used as means of treating the people suffering fro...