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Elevated sleep arousal thresholds in enuretic boys: clinical implications
Author(s) -
Wolfish NM,
Pivik RT,
Busby KA
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1997.tb09027.x
Subject(s) - arousal , sleep (system call) , medicine , audiology , developmental psychology , pediatrics , anesthesia , psychology , neuroscience , computer science , operating system
Enuretic children are described as difficult to arouse from sleep. We studied auditory sleep arousal thresholds in enuretic boys and report on die clinical implications of these findings. Fifteen enuretic and 18 control subjects (7–12‐year‐old males) were studied in a sleep laboratory for four consecutive nights using standard polysomnographic recording techniques. Sleep was undisturbed for the initial two nights and waking thresholds were measured on the following two nights. Enuretic children wet most frequently in the first two‐thirds of the night. Arousal attempts were successful 39.7% of the time in controls and only 9.3% of the time in enuretics. In conclusion, enuretic males were more difficult to arouse than age‐matched controls. The elevated arousal thresholds may be due to delayed maturation. Treatment programmes that rely on awakening should be aware of these features.