[Narcolepsy and other hypersomnias].

This article gives an overview of a few most significant but also most frequent primary hypersomnias in humans. The prevalence of hypersomnia in USA is between 0.3 and 16.3% which is close to its prevalence in Europe which is 5-16%. The prevalence of narcolepsy with cataplexy in USA and the countries of Western Europe is from 0.05-0.067%. Its presence is significantly higher in Japan and lower in Israel. Most of the symptoms of narcolepsy represent the abnormal manifestations of dissociated REM sleep process. Excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep attacks and cataplexy are the most frequent symptoms. The diagnosis of narcolepsy should be confirmed by a whole-night polysomnographic recording followed by a Multiple sleep latency test. Idiopathic hypersomnia is a rare disease (ten times as rare as narcolepsy) with the diagnostic procedure similar to that of narcolepsy. Treatment of hypersomnias is symptomatic with the aimed to reduce the most frequent symptoms (excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep attacks, cataplexy and hypnagogic/hypnapompic sleep paralyses).