Rare ‘Sleeping Beauty’ syndrome affects Kerala girl who once slept for five days at a stretch

 


The girl would suddenly fall asleep, even while standing or sitting on a sofa or anywhere. She once even slept for five days at a stretch.

It was impossible to wake her up even after an hour or two, when one would assume she had got enough sleep.

Parents of the child, Liya, who was four years old, were left dazed by what they learnt. She was having ‘sleep attacks’ that left her in deep sleep for hours, with some bouts lasting between 10-12 hours and even five days.

“In a desperate moment we tried shining a torch into her eyes”, said Linu Denny, her mother. Nothing would wake her up; it was frightening, she said.

The trips to hospitals started with the sleep attacks that began in October last year.
“What I found was that she was tremendously hungry before the attacks”, said Linu. “Hungry, irritable and crying.”

The doctors found high blood pressure and even high blood sugar in the child, but the heart rate was low, the mother said.

Liya’s developmental parameters did not follow a normal timeline. She had delayed speech and showed certain autistic features. Linu and her husband Denny Anthikkadan, a rice mill worker in Kanjoor, Kalady, had sought help earlier. She started speaking only when she turned three.

Eight ‘attacks’ so far
The girl has had eight sleep attacks since October. She was treated also for non-convulsive epileptic attacks earlier, and it was during one such episode that she was found to be bleeding from nose and mouth. The ESI hospital that was sending them to referral centres then sent her to Aster Medcity.

Dr. Akbar Mohammed Chettali, paediatric neurologist treating the child, said it was a rare case of a sleeping disorder called Kleine-Levin syndrome or ‘Sleeping Beauty’ syndrome. It is a rare neurological disorder with only around one or two cases per million, he said.

A neuropsychiatric disorder, it had earlier been found in a few cases in small children who had autistic features. But no studies have linked it with autism, he added.

A study was done using Polysomnography: recording brain waves, the oxygen level in blood, heart rate and breathing as well as eye and leg movements to diagnose sleep disorders. Consultations with other specialities followed, indicating prolonged REM (rapid eye movement, deep) sleep. Investigations through clinical criteria and diagnosis through exclusion pointed to Kleine-Levin syndrome, said Dr. Chettali. The child has responded to treatment.

The sleep attacks are expected to come down with age, the doctor said.