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Fatal Familial Insomnia

Description

Fatal familial insomnia is a rare progressive disease that begins with a difficulty in initiating sleep and leads to a total lack of sleep within a few months and ultimately causes death.

Diagnosis

The disease has four stages, taking seven to 18 months to run its course:
1. The patient suffers increasing insomnia, resulting in panic attacks and phobias. This stage lasts about four months.
2. Hallucinations and panic attacks become noticeable, continuing about five months.
3. Complete inability to sleep is followed by rapid loss of weight. This lasts about three months.
4. Dementia, turning unresponsive or mute over the course of six months. This is the final progression of the disease, and the patient will subsequently die.

Treatment

There is no cure or treatment for fatal familial insomnia.

Source: Adapted from International Classification of Sleep Disorders Diagnostic & Coding Manual, American Academy of Sleep Medicine.