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Sleep and Quality of Life in Restless Legs Syndrome

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Sleep and Quality of Life in Clinical Medicine

Summary

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.

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Authors
  1. Marco Zucconi
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  2. Mauro Manconi
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Section Psychopharmacology Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, 3508TB, PoBox 80082, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Joris C. Verster

  2. Divison of Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street - Rm # BB813, New York, NY 10032, USA

    S. R. Pandi-Perumal

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Kunin-Lunenfeld Applied Research Unit (KLARU), 3560 Bathurst St., Toronto, M6A 2E1, Canada

    David L. Streiner

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© 2008 Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

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Zucconi, M., Manconi, M. (2008). Sleep and Quality of Life in Restless Legs Syndrome. In: Verster, J.C., Pandi-Perumal, S.R., Streiner, D.L. (eds) Sleep and Quality of Life in Clinical Medicine. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-343-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-343-5_11

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-60327-340-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-60327-343-5

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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