Evaluating, Diagnosing, and Treating Sleep Disorders

Abstract

<P>We live 24 hours per day, yet we pay attention to only those hours during which we are awake. Nonetheless, the hours spent asleep may be as important to our quantity and quality of life as food. Little attention has been paid to the sleeping child, and sleep-related problems tend to present to the child healthcare practitioner only when the youngster’s sleep disturbs the parents’ sleep. Indeed, the sleepless child has received majority attention from the pediatric community, and sleeplessness has for years been relegated to the realm of only developmental and/or behavioral disorders. However, we have come a long way in the past 15 years in understanding that sleep in infants, children, and adolescents is much more than a purely developmental phenomenon. Equal importance has been given to neurophysiologic, ontogenetic, and other physiological aspects of sleep.</P><h4>ABOUT THE GUEST EDITOR</h4><P>Shephen H. Sheldon, DO, FAAP, is Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, and Director of the Sleep Medicine Center of Children’s Memorial Hospital. He is active in the clinical practice of pediatric sleep medicine and is involved in pediatric sleep medical education and research.</P><P>Dr. Sheldon is a graduate of the Midwestern University’s Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency in pediatrics at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago. He has also completed a visiting faculty fellowship in medical education at Southern Illinois University Medical School and a fellowship in Sleep Disorders Medicine at the University of Chicago. </P><P>He has served as a consultant to the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) as a facilitator during the organizing conference for education/training in primary care pediatrics and internal medicine and has served as a grant reviewer for the USPHS and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in research in primary care pediatrics. He served on the Education Committee of the Ambulatory Pediatrics Association and participated in the task force for the development of the medical school core curriculum for pediatric clerkships. He has served as Chair of the Continuing Medical Education Committee, and is a member of the National Sleep Medicine Course Committee, Education Committee, and Fellowship Training Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. </P><P>Dr. Sheldon served on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine from 2000 to 2006 and as Secretary/Treasurer 2003 to 2006. He was Board Liaison to the Continuing Medical Education Committee, is ad hoc member of the Fellowship Training Committee, and functions as a Center Accreditation Site visitor. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Sleep Medicine Foundation as its Secretary, and is past Chair of the Educational Research Advisory Board. He also serves as Associate Editor, <cite>Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine</cite>, serves on the Board of Directors of the American Insomnia Association, and is active in the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Sheldon was appointed to the American Board of Pediatrics in 2005 as representative to the American Board of Medical Specialties Sleep Medicine Policy and Examination Committee, and is a Diplomate in Sleep Medicine of the American Board of Pediatrics. He has co-chaired the Task Force of Smoke Detectors and Arousals in Children for the Standards Advisory Committee of Underwriter’s Laboratories.</P><P>He is the author of <cite>Pediatric Differential Diagnosis</cite>, <cite>Pediatric Sleep Medicine</cite>, <cite>Evaluating Sleep in Infants and Children</cite>, <cite>Atlas of Sleep Medicine in Infants and Children</cite>, and the forthcoming <cite>Differential Diagnosis in Sleep Medicine</cite>, and is Senior Editor of the textbook <cite>Principles and Practice of Pediatric Sleep Medicine</cite>.</P>