Narcolepsy Or Gelineau Syndrome: A Case Study

Narcolepsy, also known as Gelineau syndrome is a neurological disorder, not a mental illness(Feldman, 2003). This syndrome can cause cataplexy (bilateral paralysis or extreme weakness of a muscle group), hypnagogic hallucinations (fleeting visions in sleep-wake transition) or hypnopompic (sleep-wake transition); there may even be sleep paralysis, and the interrupting of nighttime sleep (Akintomide & Rickards, 2011). Thus the Narcolepsy is a disorder whose symptoms are vast.

Thus Narcolepsy is a disorder whose symptoms are quite significant from the point of view of an outside observer (Akintomide & Rickards, 2011). Because of that, the narcoleptic victoms may be misdiagnosed by family or social group around him like a lazy person, or an illness

The reason why narcolepsy leads to an increase in accidents is because it is a very disabling disease and it is often under diagnosed. Overall, the effect of narcolepsy in their victims is devastating, because patients with narcolepsy are often affected socially, due to suffering deterioration in their interpersonal, labor relations, leisure, and are more prone to accidents (Murray & Foley, 1974). These effects are even more severe than the well-documented adverse effects of epilepsy when similar criteria used for comparison (Naumann et al.,

Cataplexy is under the umbrella of narcolepsy that was named by Lowenenfelt in 1902. According to Mayer and Dauvillier, there are two types of narcolepsy: those with or without cataplexy (2013), which is sudden and transient episodes related to muscle weakness despite being consciously aware of their surroundings. Doctors can distinguish type 1 narcolepsy by the low cerebrospinal fluid hypocretin level, while type 2 is based on a series of tests in which more than two sleep onset of rapid eye movement (REM) period is observed than those of normal (Nixon et al., 2015). In other words, type 1 is just based on low cerebrospinal fluid while type 2 is based on their sleep onset during REM. This disease starts before 25 years old in 80 % of most patients causing intense sleep attacks that can occur two times a day for less than 30 minutes with a 2 hour interval (Mayer et al., 2013). These sleep attacks show to be problematic, which is why it is thought it could be a caused