Affiliations: [a] Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Neurology, Berlin, Germany
| [b] Evangelisches Krankenhaus Königin Elisabeth Herzberge, Department of Epileptology, Berlin, Germany
| [c] Institute for Diagnostics of Epilepsy, Berlin, Germany
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Bernd Josef Vorderwülbecke, MD, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Neurology, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: bernd.vorderwuelbecke@charite.de.
Abstract: REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) might render patients with Parkinson’s disease prone to sleep-disordered breathing. This retrospective polysomonographic study assessed the prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing in 108 consecutive patients with either both Parkinson’s disease and RBD (n = 37), Parkinson’s disease without RBD (n = 21), or isolated RBD (n = 50). Across all patients, 25% had at least moderate sleep-related breathing disorder, without significant differences between groups. Following multivariable analysis, RBD influenced sleep-related breathing parameters modestly but not significantly, whereas body mass index had a prominent impact. Further studies with larger patient cohorts are needed, and confounders like body mass index must adequately be controlled for.
Keywords: Body mass index, Parkinson’s disease, REM sleep behavior disorder, sleep
apnea syndromes
