Use of ramelteon for the treatment of secondary REM sleep behavior disorder

Abstract

We used ramelteon to treat two patients with secondary REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) complications along with neurodegenerative diseases including multiple system atrophy and Parkinson's disease. These two patients not only improved in terms of their clinical RBD symptoms but also exhibited a decrease in the proportion of REM sleep without atonia (from 8.5% to 3.5% and from 10.9% to 3.9% in the two patients). Although clonazepam is the standard first-line therapy for the treatment of RBD, ramelteon might be an effective treatment alternative in patients with RBD who cannot take clonazepam due to either ineffectiveness or adverse effects. © 2013 The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine.