Severe burns such as second degree burns and third degree burns can affect any aspect of the patient’s life, one of these aspects is sleep. Sleep disturbance can happen in any stage of burn injury but it’s common immediately after the burn, in the healing process and in the recovery process. About half of the patients who are affected by severe burns suffer from sleep problems and the most common is insomnia. Insomnia can present as difficulty in falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early in the morning, nightmares and poor quality sleep.
Many causes can lead to sleep disturbance following a burn injury and some of which may have a long lasting effect even after the patient being discharged home.
These causes may include: