The clinical significance of disturbed sleep and the use of hypnotics.

This article discusses the causes of sleeplessness and its long-term management. Sleep may be repeatedly disturbed by pain, dyspnoea, micturition, or restlessness. The sleep patterns of the diseases which produce these symptoms are given, with an explanation in physiological terms of why they disturb sleep. A knowledge of these sleep patterns provides a valuable aid to diagnosis. It is concluded that there is only one condition, senility leading to senile dementia, for which long-term night sedation is justified.