Blood pressure medication, levodopa and medications for Parkinsons disease have also been known to cause nightmares.The nightmares may be idiopathic or could be associated with psychiatric disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder. Nightmares can also be triggered by stress and anxiety and substance abuse, such as drugs that affect the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine and serotonin. Nevertheless, causality between drugs such as beta-blockers or alpha-agonists and nightmares is still unclear and further research needs to be done to investigate the biochemical mechanisms of nightmares.Eighty percent of patients who have PTSD report nightmares. Patients with PTSD have symptoms that are classified into three clusters: intrusive/re-experiencing, numbing, and hyperarousal. Nightmares are usually considered to be part of the intrusive/re-experiencing symptom.Some differences are existing between idiopathic and PTSD related nightmares. A PTSD person having nightmares would wake up during the night more frequently and for a longer time than with idiopathic nightmares. Consequently, people with PTSD would have a poorer sleep quality. Furthermore, nightmares related to PTSD would be more stressful than idiopathic ones. However, further studies have to be conducted in this area to obtain more reliable results. Assessment
Polysomnography records physiological parameters, such as electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG) and electrooculography (EOG) in a sleep laboratory. However, the frequency of posttraumatic nightmares tends to decrease in an artificial lab setting, which would impact the content of nightmares.
The two main types of myotonia congenita are Thomsen disease, which begins in infancy, and Becker disease (sometimes called generalized myotonia), which usually begins between the ages four and 12. References
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