Key sleep neurologic disorders
Narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome/Willis-Ekbom disease, and REM sleep behavior disorder
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Summary
Sleep disorders are frequent comorbidities in neurologic patients. This review focuses on clinical aspects and prognosis of 3 neurologic sleep disorders: narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome/Willis-Ekbom disease (RLS/WED), and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). Narcolepsy causes pervasive, enduring excessive daytime sleepiness, adversely affecting patients' daily functioning. RLS/WED is characterized by an uncomfortable urge to move the legs before sleep, often evolving toward augmentation and resulting in daylong bothersome symptoms. RBD causes potentially injurious dream enactment behaviors that often signify future evolution of overt synucleinopathy neurodegeneration in as many as 81% of patients. Timely recognition, referral for polysomnography, and longitudinal follow-up of narcolepsy, RLS/WED, and RBD patients are imperatives for neurologists in providing quality comprehensive patient care.
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Funding information and disclosures are provided at the end of the article. Full disclosure form information provided by the author is available with the full text of this article at Neurology.org/cp.
Supplemental Data: neurology.org/cp
- © 2014 American Academy of Neurology
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