Diagnostic Criteria and Assessment of Sleep Disorders

Sleep is essential for survival and plays a key role in maintaining our physical and mental health. Over the past 40 years, the field of sleep medicine has increasingly focused on the role sleep disturbances have in the etiology of medical and psychological disorders and has proposed various methods of classifying sleep disorders as distinct clinical entities or as conditions occurring comorbid to various disorders. This chapter will provide a brief overview of sleep and sleep staging, the current classification systems used for sleep/wake disorders, a description of common sleep disorders and their relationship to various medical and mental health disorders, and frequently used assessment tools used to aid in diagnosis of sleep/wake disorders. The concluding section considers limitations to the classification systems and provides suggestions for future research.