Sleep Disorder in Children in Intensive Care Unit: Current State of Problem and Prospects for Future Research

Abstract

Insomnia is one of the most common clinical syndromes of somnological disorders, including any sleep disorders under sufficient time and appropriate sleeping conditions. Significant sleep disturbances are common in children who enter the intensive care unit. Between 18 and 65 per cent of children aged between 2 and 18 hospitalized in the intensive care unit have a clinical condition of acute confusion, better known as delirium. Sleep fragmentation, reduction of total sleep time, lack of slow, deep sleep and rapid sleep, and shift of sleep time are changes that can also act as insomnia triggers. Their presence worsens the course of the disease in the patient, prolongs the hospital stay, and increases the risk of complications and lethality. Circadian sleep disorder is a condition that requires close monitoring. Although insomnia therapy approaches are not yet reliable, early diagnosis of insomnia can reduce the duration of the delirium. Sleep assessment includes questionnaires and diaries. However, it was recognized that, despite the difficulties in implementing and interpreting polysomnography, it was still a gold standard for more accurate detection of changes in sleep phases and the difference between normal and abnormal sleep. In the absence of a polysomnograph, it is permissible to use a prolonged video assisted EEG. The inventive multimodal video-assisted monitoring method makes it possible to diagnose sleep disorders, pain syndrome and differential diagnosis of apnoea with cardiac and conductivity disorders or abnormal brain activity, including the presence of sub-clinical convulsions in patients of high-risk groups using a safe and non-invasive method for analyzing trends in the total bioelectric activity of different biological structures of a child. The validation of questionnaires according to the age of the child is also an important step in the timely diagnosis of sleep disorders in older children.