Citation

Sadeh A, Klitzke M, Anders TF, Acebo C. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 1995; 34(6): 820-824.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/00004583-199506000-00024

PMID

7608057

Abstract

Blind people are prone to suffer from sleep-wake schedule disorders. This report describes 2 months of monitoring of sleep patterns and aggressive behaviors in a totally blind, severely retarded adolescent boy, hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. The documented sleep-wake patterns seem to portray a sleep-wake schedule disorder with a monthly periodicity. Aggressive behaviors seem to echo the same periodicity, suggesting that a common or linked biobehavioral timing mechanism may underlie both sleep and episodic aggressive outbursts. The need to consider sleep schedule disorders as a primary process underlying some psychopathological disorders, and the related risks of misdiagnosis and mistreatment, are highlighted.

Language: en