What is sleepwalking?
It’s a series of complex behaviors that are usually initiated during partial awakenings from sleep. People will walk around with an altered state of consciousness and impaired judgment. Various investigators have found that sleepwalkers have a lot of disruption of slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage of sleep, which occurs in the first half or first third of the night. And with each disruption, there is a vulnerability to sleepwalking. At what age is sleepwalking most common? It’s particularly common in childhood. In fact, the peak prevalence in childhood is 17 percent between the ages of 8 and 12. Most children will outgrow sleepwalking before or with puberty, although you can have the onset of sleepwalking after puberty. Up to 4 percent of adults are sleepwalkers. What causes sleepwalking in children? The vast majority of cases in children seem to have genetic basis. For example, if one parent is affected by sleepwalking, the chances are 45 percent that one of the children will also be
