Movement Disorders and Sleep

This article summarizes what is currently known about sleep disturbances in several movement disorders including Parkinson disease, essential tremor, parkinsonism, dystonia, Huntington disease, myoclonus, and ataxias. There is an association between movement disorders and sleep. In some cases the prevalence of sleep disorders is much higher in patients with movement disorder, such as rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in Parkinson disease. In other cases, sleep difficulties worsen the involuntary movements. In many cases the medications used to treat patients with movement disorder disturb sleep or cause daytime sleepiness. The importance of discussing sleep issues in patients with movement disorders cannot be underestimated.