Normal Sleep and FFI
Normal sleep has different stages that together last 90 to 100 minutes:
- REM-sleep when dreams occur.
- Non REM Stages 1 and 2: Light sleep NREM-sleep
- Non REM Stages 3 and 4: Deep slow wave sleep
REM is most important for health, followed by stage 2. Most reviving and repairing processes of the body are believed to happen during these two stages. FFI patients cannot go past stage 1 and thus their brains are not getting the rest they need to revive. Prolonged REM-sleep deprivation is the eventual cause of death.
Read more about this topic: Fatal Familial Insomnia
Famous quotes containing the words normal and/or sleep:
“A few ideas seem to be agreed upon. Help none but those who help themselves. Educate only at schools which provide in some form for industrial education. These two points should be insisted upon. Let the normal instruction be that men must earn their own living, and that by the labor of their hands as far as may be. This is the gospel of salvation for the colored man. Let the labor not be servile, but in manly occupations like that of the carpenter, the farmer, and the blacksmith.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Was it for this the clay grew tall?
MO what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth’s sleep at all?”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)