SLEEP AND AGGRESSIVE-BEHAVIOR IN A BLIND, RETARDED ADOLESCENT - A CONCOMITANT SCHEDULE DISORDER - CASE-STUDY

Blind people are prone to suffer from sleep-wake schedule disorders. T his report describes 2 months of monitoring of sleep patterns and aggr essive behaviors in a totally blind, severely retarded adolescent boy, hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. The documented sleep-wake pat terns seem to portray a sleep-wake schedule disorder with a monthly pe riodicity. Aggressive behaviors seem to echo the same periodicity, sug gesting that a common or linked biobehavioral timing mechanism may und erlie both sleep and episodic aggressive outbursts. The need to consid er sleep schedule disorders as a primary process underlying some psych opathological disorders, and the related risks of misdiagnosis and mis treatment, are highlighted.