Terminal Insomnia is Not Necessarily Fatal

A patient who is diagnosed as having terminal insomnia might be disposed to panic at the news. But the condition is not necessarily fatal, as one can learn by carefully reading this study:

“Relationship between personality and insomnia in panic disorder patients,” Hae-Ran Na, Eun-Ho Kang, Bum-Hee Yu, Jong-Min Woo, Youl-Ri Kim, Seung-Hwan Lee, Eui-Jung Kim, Sang-Yeol Lee, and Sang-Keun Chung, Psychiatry Investigation, vol. 8, no. 2, 2011, pp. 102-106. The authors, at Sungkyunkwan University, Inje University School of Medicine, Ewha Women’s University, and Wonkwang University, South Korea, report:

“We assessed sleep outcomes using the sleep items of 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. We classified insomniacs as three groups; initial, middle and terminal insomnia groups…. patients who had score of more than zero on item 4 [sleep onset latency], 5 [middle awakening] and 6 [early awakening] were defined as initial, middle and terminal insomniacs, respectively.”