Sleep, for many of us, sleep is the sweet balm that soothes and restores us after a long day of work and play. Most people, at some point in their lives, experience difficulty falling asleep or have sleeping disorders. Dyssomnias, one of the classifications of sleeping disorders which affects the amount, timing or quality of sleep of an individual (Gregory, 2008). Patience would complain that they have difficulty initiating sleep, maintaining sleep throughout the night or waking up too early in the morning as seen in insomnia and apnea. Hence dyssomnia leads to the individual feeling drowsy, having poor concentration and the inability to feel refreshed and rested in the morning. Unlike dyssomnia; in parasomnia, individuals are able to sleep, however displays abnormal physical behaviors during their sleep such as sleepwalking, night terrors, bedwetting, and narcolepsy, some of which causes difficulty to the individual and their family as well as may inflict harm to the individual. However, for this essay I shall focus more on Dyssomnia and its causes, some common types of dyssomnias, its diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV) as well as its treatment. This essay will also talk about whether these disorders present themselves similarly in children and adults, also if treatments are similar or dissimilar between the two age groups. Apnea or Sleep Apnea is a breathing-related sleep disorder involving the patient’s breathing to stop from an interval of 30 seconds to 2 minutes repeatedly during the night. Although the disorder is common, this serious and life threatening condition is generally disregarded and ineptly understood. This disorder presents itself in two forms: Obstructive Apnea and Central Apnea. Central Apnea which is the less common of the two, is a condition caused by a neurological failure of the brainstem controlling the breathing shuts down or fails to send appropriate signals to the respiratory muscles during the course of sleep. Therefore, this condition inhibits all respiratory effort causing the subject to awake as reflex and thus, the lack of sleep or no sleep at all for the sufferer. Obstructive Apnea is the condition in which multiples of repetitive pauses in breathing occurs during sleep because of a collapse in the upper airways in the body; although respiratory effort is present during these intervals of failure in breathing. Another possibility of Apnea is a mixture of the two forms called Mixed Apnea. Generally the condition commences first with symptoms of central apnea but eases out to an obstructive nature. Causes Apnea occurs most commonly in men but does not exclude itself from women or children of all ages as well. People most likely to have this condition are those with physical problems such as loud snoring, high blood pressure, overweight, or have physical abnormalities in the nose and throat in the upper airways causing some blockage and this condition may even be genetic based. Certain mechanical or structural problems in the upper airways may cause sleep apnea such that the muscles along the upper airways like the throat, tongue, or others are not coherent that it causes a blockage and thus not allowing a normal breathing passage way. According to Allan I Pack. (2011), there are a few more negative effects for older adults in the cognitive function compared to younger age group via multiple pathways. A temporary effect related to nocturnal hypoxia or daytime sleepiness that is potentially reversible. Another mechanism is permanent cognitive deterioration due to cerebrovascular events, such as strokes. In addition, older patients may suffer irreversible neuronal injury in focal central nervous system structure fur to recurrent intermittent hypoxia. Symptoms that may suggest the patient possesses sleep apnea are loud snoring, un-refreshing sleep, morning headaches, overweight, depression, restless sleep, frequent nocturnal urination, heartburn, and excessive perspiration during sleep, reduced libido, and insomnia. The next common dyssomnia is insomnia, it is a condition characterized through the difficulty in staying or falling asleep. A person battling with insomnia may wake up in the night and have a hard time falling back asleep, either they wake up too early in the morning, or feel tired as the wake up. Therefore leading to degradation of energy during the day, hence leads to general fatigue/sleepiness, irritability, and problems with concentration or memory. Insomnia may occur in two forms- Prima