Raffaele Ferri (editor) - Sleep Neurology : A Comprehensive Guide to Basic and Clinical Aspects

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Long ago, when I started learning about Sleep Medicine, the only clinical text available was Christian Guilleminaults landmark book Sleeping and Waking Disorders: Indications and Techniques. Wow, has that limited publication availability ever changed over the ensuing years! Currently there so many more books it is sometimes overwhelming for someone seeking good texts. Available formats include encyclopedic approaches, broad coveragelimited depth approaches, update books, small scopehigh depth of subject, and board reviewfocused publications, just to name a few. Now, when I see a new book I ask, Is this one useful? and For what audiences? As a career educator, I also look for applicability for both learners and teachers as well. I believe the answer for Sleep Neurology: A Comprehensive Guide to Basic and Clinical Aspects, edited by Lourdes M. DelRosso and Raffaele Ferri, is a clear yes; it is useful to the sleep medicine field.

Those looking for a solid coverage with updated information about relevant clinical aspects of the field of Sleep Medicine as related to Neurology, but less material than wading through an encyclopedia, will find a good clinical focus and solid coverage of major underlying facts and findings. As an added bonus, many of the authors are experienced faculty, having focused their career on teaching, both at their academic institutions as well as for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine committees, courses, and publications. That combination results in a recipe for success with their subject coverage.

Cross discipline students, residents and fellows, sleep fellows, mid-level practitioners from neurology-based programs, neurologists, and sleep medicine practitioners who want to learn more about sleep and neurology interrelation, and those looking for solid coverage of the indexed subjects, especially relevant for teaching, are all likely beneficiaries.

The books overall organizational format is well designed to be helpful to the reader. The chapters typically provide an efficient focus for the presented topic with an abstract, keywords, and/or an introduction to indicate the scope. The chapter organization includes integrating the neurological topic with the relevant sleep medicine topic(s) making it useful whether the reader is looking for specific areas of sleep or neurology focus, or for providing a framework for the integration of the fuller topic scope of that chapter. References are provided liberally for readers wanting greater depth in specific areas but who do not wish to get bogged down in excessive detail while reading. The coverage of neurology topics related to sleep appears to have been well thought out.

I believe the reader will likely find their time well spent as they read this book and that it will be a useful addition to the educational literature on Neurology and Sleep Medicine.

Sleep science has undergone incredible development during the last decades, probably more pronounced than other areas of science. This rapidly evolving field is still demonstrating a fast growth which will probably continue in future years. As a result of this astonishing increase in knowledge and pieces of information coming from a wide range of studies, experts dealing with sleep disorders may find it difficult to integrate this amount of information in their clinical practice.

It is with great hope we present Sleep Neurology: A Comprehensive Guide to Basic and Clinical Aspects as a useful aid to sleep clinicians, researchers, and the neurology and medical community in general. With this book, we want to present easy access to a comprehensive view of the neurologic basis of sleep disorders. We have gathered together experts from all over the world to contribute to this book, with a goal to connect the neurophysiology of sleep with sleep disorders seen in common neurologic conditions. We want the information to be relevant to the understanding of sleep processes, practical to highlight important clinical information, and concise to summarize all the key facts in sleep and neurology. The review of the list of pertinent citations and references at the end of each chapter provides the opportunity to expand the knowledge beyond the current volume. The group of authors are experts in their field and represent colleagues from various regions of the world, including Europe and North and South America. The contributors bring various perspectives and expertise to this volume.

In this first edition, we organize the material into two main parts. The first part covers the neurobiology of normal sleep and sleep functions. We start with a general description of sleep and wakefulness, discussing the circadian and homeostatic control of sleep, expanding into the neurophysiology of dreams, memory consolidation, and sleep deprivation. The second part is dedicated to the understanding of sleep symptomatology in various neurologic conditions. Here, we discuss sleep changes in patients with dementia, seizures, headaches, and stroke among other common neurologic disorders. Illustrations and tables are added to emphasize important key points discussed in each chapter.

As said above, the knowledge about the science of sleep has grown exponentially in the last decade and research has shown the association between sleep disorders and many other medical conditions. Sleep disorders can contribute to comorbidities and, vice versa, medical/neurological conditions can present with specific sleep disorders. As knowledge of the importance of sleep grows, we see it imperative to bring forth this book as a reference source of useful information for both clinicians and researchers.