Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Doctor Pushes For Trauma-Associated Sleep Disorder Diagnosis To Be Accepted
A 39-year-old man with no significant medical history sleepwalks, sleep-talks, and snores loudly. He kicks and punches the air during the night — and sometimes hits at his wife, one time bruising her face. What’s the diagnosis? Wait, one more thing: all this started after he returned from a 12-month deployment during the Iraq War in 2007. Now, what’s the diagnosis? It’s not any sleep disorder that’s currently in the books, according to one military sleep doctor. Col. Vincent Mysliwiec, a sleep-medicine specialist for the U.S. Army, thinks that cases like the one described comprise a new syndrome, which he calls Trauma-Associated Sleep Disorder, or TSD. (Varagur, 5/26)
