Periodic Limb Movements in Sleep and Cardiovascular Disease: Time to Act

Periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS) is a common sleep disorder in both the general population and in patients with chronic diseases such as patients receiving hemodialysis therapy. PLMS can be assessed during an overnight polysomnographic examination and are described as repetitive, stereotypical, and unconscious leg movements that occur during sleep. It is noteworthy, that PLMS are present in up to 80% of patients with a condition occurring during wakefulness, called restless legs syndrome (RLS). Indeed, the presence of PLMS is considered to be one of the supportive criteria for the diagnosis of the later condition (1). PLMS may also occur in patients with sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and rapid eye movement behavior disorder or even can be present in patients without any sleep or medical-related pathological condition, and especially in the elderly (2). PLMS could cause significant sleep disturbance and result in non-restorative sleep via its associated arousals and motor restlessness. It is logical then to assume that as PLMS interferes with the expected sleep associated dipping of blood pressure (3), it may constitute a risk factor for cardiac disease and mortality. Notably, a role of PLMS as a predictor of mortality has been proposed in small survival study by Benz et al. (4) in which PLMS was strongly and independently associated with mortality in renal patients. Recently direct observations on cardiac structure added strong support on the association between the severity of PLMS and cardiovascular (CV) mortality and morbidity first in secondary RLS by us (5) and then verified in idiopathic RLS patients (6) as well.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  Frontiers in Neurology

• Publication date

  2013-07-22

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fneur.2013.00097PMID 23885251PMCID 3717612
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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