Treatment
In most children, night terrors eventually subside and do not need to be treated. It may be helpful to reassure the child and their family that they will outgrow this disorder.The duration of one episode is mostly brief but it may last longer if parents try to wake up the child. Awakening the child may make their agitation stronger. For all these reasons, it is important to let the sleep terror episode fade away and to just be vigilant in order for them not to fall to the ground.Considering an episode could be violent, it may be advisable to secure the environment in which the child sleeps. Windows should be closed and potentially dangerous items should be removed from the bedroom, and additionally, alarms can be installed and the child placed in a downstairs bedroom.There is some evidence to suggest that night terrors can result from lack of sleep or poor sleeping habits. In these cases, it can be helpful to improve the amount and quality of sleep which the child is getting. It is also important to have a good sleep hygiene, if a child has night terrors parents could try to change their sleep hygiene. Another option could be to adapt childs naps so that they are not too long or too short. Then, excessive stress or conflicts in a childs life could also have an impact on their sleep too, so to have some strategies to cope with stress combined with psychotherapy could decrease the frequency of the episodes.
Occasionally, when a person with a night terror is awakened, they will lash out at the one awakening them, which can be dangerous to that individual. Most people who experience this do not remember the incident the next day, although brief dream images or hallucinations may occur and be recalled. Sleepwalking is also common during night-terror bouts, as sleepwalking and night terrors are different manifestations of the same parasomnia. Both children and adults may display behaviour indicative of attempting to escape; some may thrash about or get out of bed and begin walking or running around aimlessly while inconsolable, increasing the risk of accidental injury. The risk of injury to others may be exacerbated by inadvertent provocation by nearby people, whose efforts to calm the individual may result in a physically violent response from the individual as they attempt to escape.During lab tests, subjects are known to have very high voltages of electroencephalography (EEG) delta activity, an increase in muscle tone, and a doubled or faster heart rate. Brain activities during a typical episode show theta and alpha activity when monitored with an EEG. Episodes can include tachycardia. Night terrors are also associated with intense autonomic discharge of tachypnea, flushing, diaphoresis, and mydriasis—that is, unconscious or involuntary rapid breathing, reddening of the skin, profuse sweating, and dilation of the pupils. Abrupt but calmer arousal from NREM sleep, short of a full night-terror episode, is also common. In children with night terrors, there is no increased occurrence of psychiatric diagnoses.