SLEEP DISORDERS SOURCEBOOK

SLEEP DISORDERS SOURCEBOOK
Jenifer Swanson, editor
Detroit: Omnigraphics, Inc., 1998
439 pages, hardcover, $78
ISBN 0-7808-0234-9

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

This is a collection of previously published readings from reliable sources. They include Wake Up, America!, the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research's 1992 report to Congress, the American Sleep Disorders Association, the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies, as well as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Physician and Sportsmedicine, and other publications. The book is one of a series of 58 health sourcebooks, covering topics from AIDS to Women's Health.

The book's 53 chapters are grouped in six sections. "Understanding sleep requirements and the costs of sleep deprivation" addresses these topics as well as sleep hygiene and tells what to expect in an overnight sleep study. "Sleep through the lifespan" includes 4 chapters on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but only one on teenagers and on the elderly, and none on the average adult.

"The major sleep disorders" shows a similar imbalance, with 7 articles on sleep apnea. There are good articles on insomnia, narcolepsy, and the restless leg syndrome, however, as well as one on sleepwalking, not usually considered a major disorder. An excellent report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health describes key shift work issues. But there are no articles on other important circadian rhythm sleep disorders, such as delayed sleep phase syndrome, advanced sleep phase syndrome, or jet lag.

The "sleep medications" section focuses mainly on insomnia, with articles on prescription and over-the-counter remedies, melatonin, and benzodiazepines.

The title of the next section, "sleep and other disorders" prompts confusion, as it implies that sleep itself is a disorder. "Sleep in medical and psychiatric disorders" better describes its contents. Articles address mood disorders, chronic headaches, multiple sclerosis, and cancer, but not heart disease, high blood pressure, and asthma, where sleep disruptions occur frequently and may alter the course of the illness.

The final section, "additional help," includes a glossary and an article on finding sleep information on the Internet. A list of 47 books for further reading includes only 21 published after 1990. Most of the others are out of print. One surprising inclusion is a book for children, a classic work, Dr. Suess's Sleep Book.

The book contains some errors that cannot be blamed on the typist: the American Sleep Disorders Association's website, for example, is listed as www.sleepapnea.org (the address of the American Sleep Apnea Association) in some spots instead of www.asda.org.

In sum, while this book provides reliable information on sleep published in the past decade, it falls somewhat short in the scope of its choices. Given the rapid pace of recent developments in sleep, the book probably will have a brief shelf life. The publisher does promise in the book's introduction to issue updates "when warranted."

With its $78 price tag, this book is unlikely to find a place in the typical home library. It is a costly purchase for public and school libraries as well, strikingly so since the bulk of its contents are in the public domain, and all were published first elsewhere. A determined searcher can locate many of these articles on the Internet, but this task takes time. The hefty cost alone earns the Sleep Disorders Sourcebook a less than enthusiastic recommendation.