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The Risk of Sleep Disorder Among Persons with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

  • Sleep (M Thorpy and M Billiard Section Editors)
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Abstract

Sleep disorders and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are among the most commonly occurring neurological problems clinicians encounter simultaneously. Each can cause the other, and both share common predisposing factors. An important question that remains to be addressed is whether high-risk groups can be defined. We observed an accumulation of considerable knowledge on sleep dysfunction in mTBI in recently published works. The results highlight sleep disturbances in mTBI as the product of diverse internal and external influences, acting on a genetically determined substrate. This may partially explain the clinical heterogeneity of mTBI, pointing to the importance of establishing an accurate history on the onset and course of a specific sleep disorder in the early stages post-mTBI in the individual patient. Such an approach will aid not only diagnosis and treatment but may also lead to identification of disorders whose symptoms mimic those of TBI and thereby direct the most suitable treatment and management.

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Acknowledgments

Our study had no external funding source. The first author was supported by 2015/2016 Rehabilitation Science Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto. Angela Colantonio was supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research Grant—Institute for Gender and Health (#CGW-126580). We gratefully acknowledge the involvement of Ms. Jessica Babineau, information specialist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute for her help with the comprehensive literature search. The authors have no conflict of interest to declare pertaining to this review.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Acquired Brain Injury Lab, Rehabilitation Science Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, 550 University Avenue, Rm 11207, Toronto, ON, M5G 2A2, Canada

    Tatyana Mollayeva

  2. Department of Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, 3359 Mississauga Road North, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada

    Shirin Mollayeva

  3. Acquired Brain Injury Lab, Rehabilitation Science Institute, University of Toronto, 160-500 University Ave., Toronto, ON, M5G 1V7, Canada

    Angela Colantonio

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  1. Tatyana Mollayeva
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Tatyana Mollayeva, Shirin Mollayeva, and Angela Colantonio declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Mollayeva, T., Mollayeva, S. & Colantonio, A. The Risk of Sleep Disorder Among Persons with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 16, 55 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-016-0657-2

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