A case of extremely long sleep and waking episodes

Abstract

This report analyzes the sleep/wake patterns of a 32-year-old severely mentally retarded person with extreme periods of sleep and waking. The sleep and waking patterns were obtained from behavioral observations for 1 year. The validity of these observations was assessed by parallel actigraph recordings and behavioral observations for 1 month. The mean sleep episode was 30.5 hours in length and the mean waking episode was 30.9 hours in length. The longest sleep episode was 131 hours and the longest wake episode was 154 hours. There was little evidence of systematic homeostatic or circadian patterning.