Study: Those with depression at higher risk of sleepwalking
About 8.5 million adults in the USA have experienced nighttime wanderings and those with sleep apneas and psychiatric disorders, depression or obsessive compulsive disorders are at higher risk, says the study of 19,136 Americans ages 18 and older. Antidepressants, over-the-counter sleeping pills and certain other medications can increase the risk, but they bring on events in people with a history of sleepwalking.
“I would like to correct the impression that this phenomenon is rare,” says study author Maurice Ohayon, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center. “This is a huge number of people.”
Participants were asked in telephone surveys about their sleeping habits, general health, medications and mental disorders. People who wandered at night at least once during the year were more likely to have a family history of sleepwalking — and they often tread on quality sleep for household members. Ohayon says that’s how most of them reported knowing of their somnambulism.
“Their partners will wake up in the morning and tell them about it,” Ohayon says. “It can be very disruptive to others, while the person walking at night can be quite unaware.”
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