Diagnosing Narcolepsy or Other Medical Conditions
None of the major symptoms of
narcolepsy are exclusive to narcolepsy. Excessive daytime sleepiness, the most common of all
narcolepsy symptoms, can result from a wide range of medical conditions, including:
Various medications can also lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, as can consumption of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine. Finally, sleep deprivation has become one of the most common causes of excessive daytime sleepiness among Americans.
The number of conditions that share some symptoms with narcolepsy greatly increases the difficulty of arriving at an accurate narcolepsy diagnosis based on symptoms alone. Thus, the narcolepsy tests explained above are usually needed to make a narcolepsy diagnosis.
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