When Parkinson's disease patients go to sleep: specific sleep disturbances related to Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson's disease can be as disabling as the much better studied motor symptoms. Among the nonmotor manifestations are numerous forms of alterations of physiologic sleep patterns that may present at different stages during the course of disease. These include changes believed to be primarily related to the underlying neurodegenerative process of the disease as well as those brought about secondarily, for example, by pharmacologic treatment. Also, sleep disturbances seen in Parkinson's disease can range from temporarily increased daytime sleepiness after introduction of a dopamine agonist to the therapeutic regime to specific sleep-related diagnoses such as restless legs syndrome, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, periodic limb movements in sleep, and sleep-related breathing disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea. In this review, we discuss the different specific sleep disturbances that arise in the context of Parkinson's disease with a special emphasis on epidemiology, pathophysiology, and diagnosis.