What are 'five types' in insomnia?

by John-Mark Smith

Insomnia is a very common disease that is suffering from 10% of the population. The research team of the Netherlands Neuroscience Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands has found that there are "five types" in insomnia, and the treatment type and the risk of depression are different in each type.

Insomnia disorder subtypes derived from life history and traits of affect and personality - The Lancet Psychiatry
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30464-4/fulltext

Not All Insomnia Is The Same - In Fact, There May Be 5 Types
https://www.livescience.com/64534-insomnia-5-types.html

People with insomnia can not easily go to bed even after entering the bed, and they experience various sleeping disorders, such as being awake many times in the middle of the night, even if they get to sleep. However, even people with insomnia who have similar symptoms often do not have the same treatment.

Therefore, some researchers made a hypothesis that "there are several types of insomnia", but attempts to discover biomarkers related to insomnia type fail It was over. So the research team at the Netherlands Neuroscience Laboratory conducted an online survey of over 4000 people as part of the project " Netherlands Sleep Registry " to determine the type of insomnia.

In the survey, a questionnaire was conducted on respondents' sleeping habits and other characteristics, and it turned out that about 2000 of the respondents had symptoms of insomnia. In order to identify the type of insomnia, the research team did not only inquire about sleep disorders, but also investigated the individual's personality, mood, emotion, reaction to a stressful event, and so on.

by Nathan Cowley

As a result, the researchers found that respondents who are insomnia tend to apply to one of the five types listed below.

◆ Type 1 insomnia: Have a high level of pain (negative emotions such as high level of anxiety and worry), low happiness

◆ Type 2 insomnia: with moderate level of pain, but happiness and happy emotions are also medium level

◆ Type 3 insomnia: with moderate level of pain, low degree of happiness and happiness experience

◆ Type 4 insomnia: Although pain is at a low level, I have experienced insomnia over a long period of my life against a stressful event

◆ Type 5 insomnia: pain is low level, insomnia is less susceptible to stressful events

These types will not change over time, the research team says. Even if the research team conducted the questionnaire once again for the same respondents five years after the first questionnaire, 87% of the respondents seemed to have not changed from the type classified in the first questionnaire.

by Ivan Obolensky

The research team found not only that there are five types of insomnia patients, but also that there is a difference in the effect of a specific treatment method depending on each type, and there is a difference in the risk of depression.

For example, in patients with type 2 insomnia and group 4 insomnia, treatment with benzodiazepine , a kind of psychotropic drug, has had a major effect on improving insomnia. On the other hand, in group 3 insomnia, treatment with benzodiazepine did not improve insomnia. Conversational therapy, which is one type of cognitive behavior therapy, was effective in the group of type 2 insomnia, whereas the effect of conversational therapy was not seen in group 4 insomnia. Patients with type 1 insomnia are at risk of high depression for the rest of their lives.

by omar alnahi

Mr. Tsuyoshi Kitajima, associate professor of psychiatric neuroscience at Fujita Medical College , said that "This shows that there is a strong type in insomnia" in this research result. On the other hand, this type is categorized by factors not directly related to sleeping, and it is pointed out that some sleep researchers may be concerned about typing, but this time the type indicated by the research Some of them have similarities with "Category of insomnia" which was once accepted by sleep medicine circle.

The results of this study suggest that the treatment of insomnia may be beneficial for a specific patient, and also shows that depression care is important for some types of insomnia, Further study is considered necessary. Meanwhile, according to the research team, the respondents who cooperated in this survey are those who voluntarily cooperated in sleep-related research and do not necessarily represent the whole insomnia patient It is said that there is. There seems to be possibility that there are even more types that could not be found in the research.

by Claudio_Scott