title: Childhood-onset insomnia.
abstract: Twenty patients who had been insomniac since childhood were compared with 39 who had become insomniac during adult life. The childhood-onset insomniacs took longer to fall asleep, slept less, and showed excessive amounts of REM sleep without eye movements. Adult-onset insomniacs showed more restless sleep. No differences between childhood- and adult-onset groups were found on personality inventories, but those with childhood-onset insomnia reported more evidence of possible "soft" neurological impairment.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008950:MMPI; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012890:Sleep; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012895:Sleep, REM