Schlafmedizinische Charakterisierung von Parkinson-Patienten mit Schlafattacken unter dopaminerger Therapie

Recently, so-called ”sleep attacks” in PD patients taking the non-ergoline dopamine agonists pramipexole and ropinirole have been described. In the meantime it has become clear that sudden onset of sleep (SOS) can be a side effect of any dopaminergic medication. However, the pathophysiology of this phenomenon is only poorly understood. Most investigators consider SOS rather the consequence of an impaired perception of daytime sleepiness than a paroxysmal symptom. Furthermore it has been suggested that SOS may predominantly occur in a subset of PD patients with shortened sleep latency and SOREM episodes during multiple sleep latency testing (MSLT). Here we investigated nighttime sleep and daytime sleepiness in matched PD patients with and without ”sleep attacks”.