Normal Sleep and FFI
Normal sleep has different stages that together last 90 to 100 minutes:
- REM-sleep when dreams occur.
- Non REM Stages 1 and 2: Light sleep NREM-sleep
- Non REM Stages 3 and 4: Deep slow wave sleep
REM is most important for health, followed by stage 2. Most reviving and repairing processes of the body are believed to happen during these two stages. FFI patients cannot go past stage 1 and thus their brains are not getting the rest they need to revive. Prolonged REM-sleep deprivation is the eventual cause of death.
Read more about this topic: Fatal Familial Insomnia
Famous quotes containing the words normal and/or sleep:
“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“And that their sleep be sound
I say this childermas
Who could not, at one time,
Have saved them from the gas.”
—Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)