Sleep Disorders Linked With Parkinson's Disease
The sleep disorder known as REM sleep behavior disorder may be a pre-cursor for Parkinsons disease and memory loss problems. When we sleep there are two states. One is the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and the other one is called rapid eye movement (REM). The REM state results in rapid eye movements; breathing will not be regular; blood pressure increases and muscles will relax and be in a paralysis state. Although the body is weak at this state, the brain on the other hand remains active. This is the condition when dreams occur and we spend 20% to 25% on this state during sleep.
When a person has REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD), the loss of muscle tone or paralysis becomes absent or incomplete. This causes the person to “act out” the dream. Acts like yelling, punching, talking, jumping, kicking, sitting, grabbing and arm flailing are examples of what happens during an RBD episode. More intense behaviour happens when the person is withdrawing from sedative-hypnotic drugs and alcohol. Victims of RBD are the elderly especially men. The cause of this sleep disorder is not known though this is linked with other degenerative neurological situations like Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, multi system atrophy and the Shy-Drager syndrome.
A team from Mayo Clinic discovered that those suffering from RBD have more risks of having Parkinson’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. They released the study in the Annals of Neurology. According to the team, the development of RBD can occur in the first four years of diagnosis of this type of sleep disorder.
Brad Boeve, M.D., a Mayo Clinic neurologist and a study proponent, said that the knowledge of these elevated risk factors can lead to earlier intervention to decrease the risks of MCI, Parkinson’s and other afflictions that destroy brain cells.
He also mentioned that there are ongoing studies on how to best treat the diseases but the best option is to detect them and prevent cell death.
The team assessed over 600 subjects from age 70 to 89. 34% of those who may have RBD progressed to a cognitive deficiency or Parkinson’s disease. These developed after four years from finding out that they had RBD. Those with RBD increased the risk by 2.2% than those who did not have such sleep disorder.
Dr. Brendon P. Boot, M.D., a behavioral neurologist at Harvard University, added that now by merely asking a few questions, the development of neurodegenerative disorders can be identified in the average person and not necessarily in clinical patients.
Ask a free sleep question on SleepDisorders.com if you are wondering how REM sleep behavior disorder may affect you and your risk factors for developing any sort of neurological impairment.
