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Narcolepsy

What are the symptoms?

The primary symptoms are excessive day-time sleepiness and cataplexy. Cataplexy is characterised by short-lived (seconds to minutes) weakness or paralysis of the face, neck, jaw, trunk and limb muscles. Cataplexy is not always present at the outset of narcolepsy, but usually develops in time.

Other additional symptoms may include sleep paralysis, hypnapagogic (waking) hallucinations; automatic behaviour and disturbed night sleep.

View Background Background  |  What are the causes? View What are the causes?

Medical text written November 1991 by Contact a Family. Approved November 1991 by Professor M Patton, Professor of Medical Genetics, St Georges Hospital Medical School, London, UK and Dr J E Wraith, Consultant Paediatrician, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester, UK. Last updated April 2004 by Professor A Zeman, Professor of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, UK.

 

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