RESEARCH: Sleep disorders and their determinants in multiple system atrophy.

[Guest guest]

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2002 Jun;72(6):798-800

Sleep disorders and their determinants in multiple system atrophy.

Ghorayeb I, Yekhlef F, Chrysostome V, Balestre E, Bioulac B, Tison F.

Service d'Explorations Fonctionnelles du Systeme Nerveux, Clinique du

Sommeil,

Hopital Pellegrin, Place Amelie Raba-Leon, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France

Service

de Neurologie, Hopital du Haut Leveque, Avenue de Magellan, 33600 Pessac

cedex,

France INSERM U-330 Biostatistiques et Epidemiologie, Universite Bordeaux 2,

146, rue Leo-Saignat, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the incidence, types, determinants, and consequences

of

sleep disorders in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA) and determine

whether their characteristics are similar to those of patients with

Parkinson's

disease (PD). METHODS: Information about sleep disorders was collected using

a

standardised questionnaire in an unselected group of 57 patients with MSA

and in

62 patients with PD matched as a group for age, sex distribution, and

disease

duration. RESULTS: Seventy percent of patients with MSA complained of sleep

disorders compared with 51% of patients with PD (p=0.03). The most commonly

reported sleep disorders were sleep fragmentation (52.5%), vocalisation

(60%),

REM sleep behaviour disorder (47.5%), and nocturnal stridor (19%). Except

for

sleep fragmentation, the incidence of these disorders was significantly

higher

than in PD. Sleep problems tended to be associated with more severe motor

symptoms, longer disease duration, depression, and longer duration of

levodopa

treatment. Half of patients with MSA with sleep disorders complained of

daytime

somnolence compared with 30% of patients with PD. Daytime somnolence was

significantly associated with disease severity in MSA. CONCLUSION: This

study

shows that sleep disorders are more common in patients with MSA than in

those

with PD after the same duration of the disease, reflecting the more diffuse

underlying pathological process in MSA.

PMID: 12023429 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]