How is sleep disorder in Parkinson’s disease treated?

In addition to the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, sleep disorders are also very common. This article reviews the etiology, pathogenesis, common types of clinical manifestations, and treatment strategies for Parkinson’s disease to improve clinicians’ understanding of Parkinson’s disease sleep disorders and to improve the quality of life of Parkinson’s disease patients. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease in middle-aged and elderly people, and the prevalence increases with age, with a prevalence of about 1%-2% in people over 65 years old, and increases to 4-5% in people over 85 years old. Clinically, Parkinson’s disease mainly manifests as symptoms of movement disorders such as resting tremor, muscle tonicity, reduced movement, postural and position abnormalities, but also non-motor symptoms, including sleep disorders, cognitive impairment, psychiatric symptoms and autonomic dysfunction. Sixty to 98% of patients with Parkinson’s disease have varying degrees of sleep disorders, twice as many as the normal population, and more than other chronic diseases with sleep disorders. Sleep disorders mostly appear in the clinical middle and late stages of Parkinson’s disease, but can also appear in the early clinical stage, that is, sleep disorders can precede the appearance of motor symptoms, often leading to misdiagnosis, mistreatment or delayed treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Treatment 1. First, the patient’s sleep disorder is properly assessed. Through the patient, family members or companions to understand in detail the patient’s past and current sleep status, drug use and its relationship with Parkinson’s disease, the presence of other concomitant diseases, etc., improve the sleep questionnaire for patients with Parkinson’s disease, perform the necessary PSG testing, determine and analyze the clinical type of sleep disorders and possible causes, and then take appropriate treatment measures. 2.Sleep hygiene education and sleep behavior intervention For patients with sleep disorders, establishing good sleep habits is one of the effective methods. Firstly, patients should have a comfortable sleeping environment, such as suitable room temperature and light, the bed mattress should not be too soft to avoid difficulty in turning over, and facilities to facilitate getting into and out of bed for patients with high motor retardation and rigidity. Secondly, good sleeping habits, such as regular sleeping and waking time, moderate increase of daytime activities, avoiding patients going to bed very early at night and not reading, watching TV or working in bed to reduce excessive sleeping on the following day. Third, a reasonable diet, avoiding a high-fat diet and limiting water intake before bedtime to reduce the number of urination at night. 3, choose the appropriate Parkinson’s treatment drugs Individualized treatment of Parkinson’s disease is also very important to improve sleep disorders. For Parkinson’s disease movement disorders caused by sleep sleep disorders, Parkinson’s disease can be treated to improve sleep quality and daytime waking time, to prevent over-treatment may add insomnia or induce vivid dreams. Regulating the dose and number of doses of L-dopa or adding a catecholamine-oxygenation-methyltransferase inhibitor to the previous night’s L-dopa application can both achieve control of nocturnal motor symptoms. Continuous dopamine receptor agonists can be used to control nocturnal symptom fluctuations, bedtime dopamine slow-release agents contribute to early morning dystonia in Parkinson’s disease, and the addition of COMT-1 inhibitors such as tolcapone can prolong the effective duration of action of dopamine drugs. Cabergoline was more effective in controlling morning motor inability and early morning dystonia. Double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trials have shown that transdermal administration of ropinirole significantly improves PDSS scores, including symptoms such as difficulty falling asleep; the addition of ropinirole extended-release for advanced Parkinson’s disease significantly improves sleep quality across the board, including shortening the duration of difficulty falling asleep and improving pre-existing sleep fragmentation. For excessive daytime sleepiness caused by levodopamine drug prolonged release, it can be relieved by changing to fast-acting drugs; patients with dopamine receptor agonists causing sleep episodes and vivid dreams at night should reduce the dose of such drugs or avoid the application of such drugs as much as possible, such as daily doses of 4 mg or more of pramipexole will cause daytime sleepiness, which can reduce the dose of drugs thus reducing the occurrence of sleep disorders. 4, psychogenic treatment Parkinson’s disease with depression affects sleep disorders, treatment for depression can significantly improve nighttime dysfunction and improve sleep quality. Timely understanding of the patient’s psychological state, guide patients and their families to understand the condition, encourage and enhance the patient’s self-esteem and social value of self, treat the disease correctly, and lift negative, pessimistic, depressive and restless emotions. If necessary, 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake inhibitors or tricyclic antidepressants, as well as atypical antipsychotics such as paroxetine, citalopram, amitriptyline, quetiapine, etc. Psychotherapy can also be used to improve sleep efficiency, including cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy and biofeedback therapy. 5, sedative-hypnotics Insomnia patients can use small doses, intermittent, short-term sedative-hypnotics, according to the type of sleep disorder to choose the drug, currently the most commonly used benzodiazepines and zolpidem, but the elderly are prone to excessive daytime sleep and cognitive impairment, long-term use may also appear drug dependence, especially benzodiazepines. Short-term administration of zolpidem tartrate not only treats insomnia, but also improves early morning stiffness, overall sleep and post-sleep energy recovery, and is a common clinical treatment for insomnia. Benzodiazepines and dopamine receptor agonists are preferred for the treatment of restless legs syndrome. 6, Chinese medicine treatment Chinese medicine has shown good clinical efficacy in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease sleep disorder. Clinically used tranquilizers such as sour date palm soup, tianwang tianxin dan, ganmai da zao tang, ginseng rejuvenation pill have better therapeutic effect on the sleep disorder appearing in this disease. Shi Huifen reported that the treatment of Parkinson’s patients with Chinese herbal medicine to stop fibrillation soup has improved the sleep disorder and daytime drowsiness of Parkinson’s patients and achieved better clinical results. 7.Surgical treatment Surgery is rarely applied to treat the sleep disorder of Parkinson’s disease clinically. Surgery has high risk and its efficacy is uncertain, which is difficult for general patients to accept. The literature reports that continuous electrical stimulation via hypothalamic nuclei not only relieves the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but also significantly improves patients’ sleep disorders and reduces insomnia, and high-frequency stimulation improves the sleep structure of Parkinson’s disease patients and reduces nocturnal fluctuations. In conclusion, Parkinson’s disease and its sleep disorders seriously affect the quality of life of patients. Targeted individualized treatment of Parkinson’s can reduce the occurrence of sleep disorders and improve the quality of life of patients, while sleep hygiene education and sleep behavior intervention, psychotherapy, appropriate adjunctive sedative-hypnotic drugs and Chinese medicine can improve the sleep disorders in Parkinson’s disease.