Clinical Manifestation of Parkinson's Disease in Association with Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder Onset.

AIMS: To confirm whether the presence and/or timing of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) onset were associated with differences in clinical features of Parkinson's disease (PD), clinical characteristics of PD patients with RBD occurring before and after PD diagnosis were investigated.

METHODS

Consecutive PD patients were enrolled between July 2011 and February 2012. RBD questionnaire Hong Kong and clinical interviews were used to identify RBD symptoms and onsets. All patients underwent evaluations to collect clinical and treatment information.

RESULTS

Of all 79 PD patients, 21 (26.6%) and 22 (27.8%) patients had RBD prior to (RBD-PD) and after PD diagnosis (PD-RBD), respectively. Thirty-six (45.6%) PD patients reported no RBD at the time of study (PD-NRBD). PD-RBD had similar clinical features as PD-NRBD did except that Epworth sleepiness scale score was significantly higher in PD-RBD (p = 0.04). Compared to PD-RBD and PD-NRBD, RBD-PD had a higher frequency of reporting excessive daytime sleepiness (p = 0.019, p = 0.008, respectively) and constipation (p = 0.046, p = 0.032, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Our preliminary results suggest that RBD-PD might be clinically different from PD-RBD, which appears to share similar characteristics with PD-NRBD, regarding only non-motor functions.