SLEEP DISTURBANCES OF PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENT S

Many patients, especially those with psychiatric disorders, complain o f disturbed sleep. Thus the question arises whether there is a link be tween disturbed sleep and psychic complaints. In this article the foll owing aspects are critically reviewed: 1. impact of sleep changes on t he pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders; 2. onset of sleep disturbanc es in correlation to onset of psychiatric symptomatology; 3. specifici ty of sleep patterns in psychiatric syndromes; 4. therapeutical conseq uences due to the findings of sleep EEG studies. Up to now the sleep d ata of psychiatric patients in the literature are rather inconsistent. Furthermore there are only a few rather specific findings. Some impor tant clinical aspects for the planning of therapeutic strategies are r eviewed.