Sleep disruption experienced by surgically treated brain aneurysm patients.

With brain imaging detected un-ruptured intracranial vascular aneurysms are treated with microsurgery as a preventive measure as rupture results in intra-cerebral bleeding, damage of brain tissue and often death. We studied sleep before (once) and after surgery (twice) with home polysomnography. Compared to preoperative sleep, time till falling asleep and the amount of wakefulness increased postoperatively (2-4 weeks after). Later the amount of REM sleep increased. The next step is to evaluate the relevance of sleep findings with daytime performance. Postoperative fatigue in recovering patients can be caused by sleep related factors.