Sleep attacks in Parkinson’s disease: a clinical and polysomnographic study

Abstract The objective of the study was to evaluate daytime sleepiness, (the features of episodes of sudden sleep onset), i.e., so-called sleep attacks (SAs), in three male Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients (mean age 66 years) on chronic therapy with ropirinole or pramipexole. A structured clinical interview, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and continuous 24-h ambulatory polysomnography were used to assess the features of SAs occurring in the patients in their normal home environments. The polysomnographic patterns characterizing SAs (sleep occurring against a background of wakefulness, and not pre-ceded by a feeling of sleepiness or by other heralding symp-toms) were analyzed. The results showed that SAs can be clear-ly documented through polysomnographic monitoring and real-ly, but rarely, occur in PD. SAs seem to represent the extreme of the continuum of daytime sleepiness observed in PD patients