New Evidence in Excessive Daytime Sleepiness Management: Meeting the Challenge to Provide Treatment

Two major causes of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) are obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) and central hypersomnias such as narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia. For those with OSA, who still have residual EDS after effective positive airway pressure during sleep, alerting medications leads to improvement. For those with narcolepsy, several alerting medications are available but none are ideal. Many with narcolepsy may need more than one medication to manage all the consequences of narcolepsy.