title: Prevalence and clinical characteristics of restless legs syndrome in Japanese patients with Parkinson's disease.
abstract: To explore the clinical significance of restless legs syndrome (RLS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) and the causal relationship between these two disorders, we made a comparison of both the prevalence of RLS and the severity of sleep disturbance manifested on the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) between patients with PD (n=165) and age- and sex-matched control subjects (n=131). The prevalence of RLS diagnosed by clinical interview was significantly higher in PD patients than in control subjects (12% vs. 2.3%). PSQI score was significantly higher in PD patients with RLS than in both patients without RLS and controls. However, PSQI score was not statistically different between the latter two groups. Among the PD patients with RLS, only 2 had a positive family history of RLS. Only 3 PD patients had requested treatment for the disorder. Our results emphasize the etiological link between RLS and PD in a Japanese cohort, and the existence of RLS is thought to be one of the most important factors aggravating sleep disturbance in PD, despite the low RLS severity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Institute of Neurological Sciences, Tottori University Faculty of Medicine, Yonago, Japan. ZVS03523@nifty.ne.jp
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nomura
authors.forename: Yuichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miyake
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yasui
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakashima
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012148:Restless Legs Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*