Nocturnal Disturbances in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Sleep disturbances are common problems in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) caused by various factors including nocturnal motor symptoms, psychiatric symptoms, dementia, medication use and circadian cycle disruptions as well as comorbidity with sleep apnea syndrome (SAS), restless legs syndrome (RLS) and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) (Table 1). As impaired sleep quality and sleep fragmentation due to nighttime problems are associated with daytime motor dysfunction and have a negative impact on the quality of life of the patient (Gómez-Esteban et al., 2010), an intensive and detailed evaluation of nighttime problems is warranted. Patients often may be unaware of sleep disturbances and even neurologists have been reported to fail to recognize sleep disorders in approximately 40% of PD patients (Shulman et al., 2002). Here, we review sleep disorders in patients with PD, mainly focusing on nighttime problems.