Nocturnal Sleep Recording with Cassette EEG in Chronic Headaches

Abstract

Many headache patients complain of poor sleep, and sleep disturbance has been shown to play a role in chronic pain. We recorded nocturnal sleep with a 4-channel cassette EEG monitoring device in 10 common migraine patients, 10 individuals with muscle contraction (tension) headache, and 10 chronic tension-vascular headache sufferers. Migraine patients had essentially normal sleep, although rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and REM latency were increased. Patients with tension headache had reduced sleep time and sleep efficiency, decreased sleep latency but frequent awakenings, increased nocturnal movements, and marked reduction in slow wave sleep, without change in REM sleep or latency. Mixed-element headaches with both tension and vascular features were associated with reduced sleep, increased awakening, diminished slow wave sleep, and REM sleep that was decreased in amount and reduced in latency. The findings suggest that patients with intermittent migraine may have minimal sleep disturbance, while chronic headache may be worsened by chronically poor sleep. Muscle contraction headache may be associated with frequent awakenings and decreased slow wave sleep similar to the sleep changes of fibrositis, while chronic tension-vascular headache may have a depressive substrate. Four-channel sleep recording may miss contributory sleep apnea, but nonetheless cassette EEG may facilitate outpatient evaluation of refractory headaches.

Sleep quality, chronotypes and preferential timing of attacks in migraine without aura

“…The data in the literature up to now have not allowed an explanation of the preferential occurrence of migraine without aura in the second part of the night and in the early morning, because it may depend on a non better defined impairment of chronobiological mechanisms or be related to a temporal relationship with sleep stages; an emergence of migraine attacks in REM sleep has, indeed, been polygraphically documented in the past few years [10]. Further studies should focus on night-time and early morning migraine headache to evaluate its physiopathological aspects and also to verify if the preferential time of occurrence may affect response to migraine therapy.…”

Cefaléias em salvas: estudo das alterações autonômicas e outras manifestações associadas em 28 casos

“…Em cinco pacientes não foram encontradas informações no prontuário. As crises de CS apresentaram nítido predomínio de aparecimento no período noturno, o que está de acordo com os dados da literatura 9,16,20 .…”

Migr�ne und Schlaf

“…Im Rahmen von polysomnographischen Untersuchungen an 10 Migränepatienten über 7 Tage beschrieben Drake et al [3], daß sich Migränepatienten mit einer durchschnittlichen Schlafdauer von 7,2 h nicht signifikant von einer gesunden Kontrollgruppe (durchschnittliche Schlafdauer 7,1 h) unterscheiden. Rasmussen [23] …”

“…B. Schlafdauer, Einschlaf-und Aufwachzeit sowie die subjektive Schlafqualität wurden bisher nur vereinzelt untersucht [3,23]. Studien, die sich mit Hilfe systematischer Einzelfallbeobachtungen auf der Basis von Schlaftagebü-chern mit der Fragestellung beschäfti-gen, ob bestimmte Schlafparameter während der Migräneattacke und wäh-rend des anfallsfreien Intervalls verän-dert sind, wurden bisher nicht durchgeführt.…”