Sleep and quality of life in restless legs syndrome

Abstract

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sensory-motor disorder characterized by uncomfortable and disagreeable sensations at lower limbs, urge to move them and peaking during rest periods and at evening/night, with impact on sleep, causing insomnia and sleep fragmentation. Both severity of the sensory symptoms and periodic legs movements during sleep (PLMS) contribute to sleep impairment and, consequently, to a reduced quality of life (QoL). Measurement of RLS impact on QoL is made, both in clinical and epidemiological studies, by means of a Short Form-36 (SF-36) of health survey questionnaire and by validated and disease-specific QoL scales (RLSQoL and Hopkins RLSQoL). Both types of measures indicated a significant impact of RLS on QoL in different clinical and prevalence studies and showed good reliability, reproducibility and responsiveness. Moreover, QoL significantly improved, both in short-term studies and in recently published long-term protocols, with dopaminergic treatment in comparison to placebo. In what measure RLS per se, some disease-specific symptoms as restlessness and bad sleep or other co-morbidity factors, contribute to the impairment of QoL remain to be further investigated. © 2008 Humana Press, Totowa, NJ.