While sleep is vital for health and well-being, getting restful sleep is not always easy. Rapid eye movement, REM, is a necessary phase of the sleep cycle in which dreaming occurs. Ensuring what's commonly termed "a good night's sleep" requires,...
Your child's sleep patterns will change dramatically as he matures into an adolescent. Rapid eye movement, or REM, is more prominent in newborns and they may even experience REM while they are awake--usually during an aroused state such as when...
As babies are unable to communicate health sensations and feelings, parents and caregivers must be especially mindful of signs of trouble. One major health challenge to watch for is seizures, which can be an early sign of epilepsy or a reaction to...
Neurontin, or gabapentin, is a medication that is commonly used to control partial seizures in epileptic patients. This medication increases the amount of GABA, which is a chemical that slows down nerve conduction in the brain. Researchers believe...
Reglan is the brand name of the drug metoclopramide. It is most commonly used to treat two conditions. First, it helps alleviate nausea and vomiting. Second, it treats conditions in which the stomach and intestines move food along less actively....
Neurontin, sold under the generic name gabapentin, is a medication used to treat seizures (convulsions) in adults and children at least 12 years of age, says Drugs.com. It belongs to the class of drugs known as anticonvulsants and is available as...
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, affects the central nervous system and can lead to problems with motor skills and sensation. The onset of symptoms for MS typically is between the ages of 20 and 40. Each person may develop different symptoms depending...
The are many medical conditions associated with nystagmus. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health or NIH, nystagmus is the rapid, involuntary movement of a person's eyes from side to side, up and...
At birth or in early childhood, a doctor may determine that a child has an eye condition. Early detection of eye disease will often help prevent permanent damage to the eyes or to the child's vision. Usually a parent will notice something about a...
MS, or multiple sclerosis, is an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. An autoimmune disease is a condition in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissue instead of bacteria or viruses. In MS, the immune system...
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, results from damage to the myelin sheath, which covers part of the neuron. Without the proper myelin sheath, communication from and to the brain becomes affected. According to 2008 information from the Merck Manual Home...
Huntington's disease (HD), known also as Huntington’s Chorea, is a progressive and ultimately fatal neuro-degenerational disease. HD is a devastatingly destructive disease where certain neurons (brain cells) degenerate because of genetic...
An autoimmune disease, multiple sclerosis is also known as 'demyelinating disease' according to the New York Times. It damages the myelin sheath that surrounds nerve cells, reducing their ability to process nerve impulses. Rather than experiencing...
Congenital diseases refer to diseases that are present at birth. Sometimes, the congenital condition affects a certain body part or is an inherited condition that affects growth and development. Congenital diseases are typically present at birth,...
Dark circles under your eyes can strike men, women and children, and can be the result of heredity, lack of sleep, allergies, sun exposure, aging, rubbing your eyes or other lifestyle factors, including smoking and stress. Facial exercises can...
Epitol, also known as carbamazepine, is a drug used to treat certain types of epilepsy, and for a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which causes excruciating pain in the jaw. According to experts at Drugs.com, some doctors also use it to...
Huntington's disease, an inherited neurological disorder, affects about 30,000 people in the United States, and another 200,000 are at risk, according to the Family Caregiver Alliance. Huntington's disease starts by affecting patients' cognitive...
Symptoms or lab tests alone cannot verify someone has multiple sclerosis, also called MS, a progressive disease of the central nervous system. Doctors combine exams, magnetic resonance imaging, spinal fluid analysis and other techniques to reach a...
Discovered in 1849, multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disorder in which inflammation occurs in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). MS also causes...
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune and debilitating disease that is characterized by the immune system eating away at the sheath that protects and covers the nerves of the brain and spinal cord, according to the Mayo Clinic. Irreversible damage...
Dilaudid (hydromorphone) is a medication used to manage pain. According to Drugs.com, it is a narcotic pain reliever that provides continuous relief. In some cases, Dilaudid can also help decrease coughing. It is available as a tablet or an...
Trileptal (generic name: oxycarbazepine) is a medication used to manage partial seizures, a condition in which the electrical activity in the brain is disorganized in only one region. It is an anticonvulsant medication that helps reduce the...
First described in 1897, benign positional vertigo, or BPV, is the most common cause of vertigo -- a condition in which an individual wrongly interprets movement stimulus as a result of a positioning disorder inside the ear. Many conditions mimic...
Thiamine, also known as vitamin B-1, helps convert carbohydrates into fuel and aids in fat and alcohol metabolism. Because many foods contain thiamine, deficiency rarely occurs. Alcoholics and people who subsist mostly on foods high in...
Multiple sclerosis is caused by damage to a protective covering that surrounds nerve cells called the myelin sheath. Nerve impulses are slowed or stopped. Researchers are not sure what triggers the damage, but it could be a virus or genetic...
All inherited characteristics are encoded by genes. Some simply distinguish people from one another, such as hair color. Abnormalities of one or more genes, particularly recessive genes, are fairly common. Every human being carries six to eight...
According to a 2007 review in the "Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine," sleep occurs in a progressive series of stages. People typically experience light sleep, deep sleep and then rapid eye movement sleep. This last stage is also known as REM...
"Prescription drug abuse," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is the term for taking prescribed medications inappropriately. This may include taking drugs not prescribed to you, taking an excessive amount of drugs or taking drugs...
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is an autoimmune disease affecting the brain and central nervous system. According to the Mayo Clinic, the immune system eats away the protective sheath covering the nerves, leading to possible nerve damage. MS normally...