The Connection Between Parkinson’s Disease & Sleep Disorders

This article says that those with Parkinson's are more likely to have sleep disorders, including sleep apnea (which is specifically mentioned).

There is no conclusion as to whether Parkinson's causes (or exacerbates) Sleep Apnea, Sleep Apnea causes (or exacerbates) Parkinson's, or both.

However, it's still a good reason to make sure that SDB is treated! Clearly, not treating it can only make Parkinson's worse.


Link ===> https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2017/06 ... disorders/

D.H. wrote:This article says that those with Parkinson's are more likely to have sleep disorders, including sleep apnea (which is specifically mentioned).

There is no conclusion as to whether Parkinson's causes (or exacerbates) Sleep Apnea, Sleep Apnea causes (or exacerbates) Parkinson's, or both.

However, it's still a good reason to make sure that SDB is treated! Clearly, not treating it can only make Parkinson's worse.


Link ===> https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2017/06 ... disorders/

Do both develope hangnails also, or is that in another paper. Jim

"parkinsons causes dystonia or muscle control problems, of course that could cause apnea"

More garbage. STOP POSTING THIS crap as real live people out there who don't YET know better are going to pay a (little) attention and be more stressed than they already are! Is it really your intention to hurt them? Why? If you need to hurt something go get a punching bag, but leave sick people alone!

As I read it, the referenced article says 40% of Parkinson's patients suffer from sleep apnea. Here is a quote:

More serious sleeping disorders may also occur such as sleep apnea or REM sleep behavioral disorder. Around 40 percent of people living with Parkinson’s disease will experience sleep apnea when breathing becomes obstructed while asleep. The common symptoms of this are loud snoring, pauses in breathing, restless sleep, and feeling very tired during the day. Sleep apnea can be controlled using breathing equipment  — continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) — throughout the night.

Thanks for posting the link to the article, D.H.

But I think I'm with Goofproof on this one, as far as OSA.

My personal opinion on it is that the article contains some old assumptions based on anecdotal estimations that lack scientific or medical relevancy. I believe some find no association and some actually find a negative association, when it comes to OSA.

However, the article is still a good reminder of how important sleep is and breathing is for those with, or without, any given medical condition(s).

Just my opinionated 2 cents as a nobody.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3727899/

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0082091

You picked the wrong battle to fight here - I spent 30 yrs working for neurologists, most of whom treated Parkinson's. And sleep apnea was not a factor, or if it ever came up it was an a completely incidental finding with no bearing on P's, and for SURE apnea is NOT caused by dystonia or muscle control problems!

jnk... wrote:Thanks for posting the link to the article, D.H.

But I think I'm with Goofproof on this one, as far as OSA.

My personal opinion on it is that the article contains some old assumptions based on anecdotal estimations that lack scientific or medical relevancy. I believe some find no association and some actually find a negative association, when it comes to OSA.

However, the article is still a good reminder of how important sleep is and breathing is for those with, or without, any given medical condition(s).

Just my opinionated 2 cents as a nobody.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3727899/

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0082091

From the journals article:

""PD patients generally have a reduced prevalence of OSA. According to our analysis, these results are primarily due to the lower BMI of PD patients when compared with the general population controls.""

This statement alone would make me have questions about the validity of the study as a thin person with sleep apnea. Of course, I could be missing other relevant information but I just wanted to point that out.

For what it is worth, I had an uncle with Parkinson's who sure sounded like he had sleep apnea from the reports I heard. I admittedly don't know specific details and I realize one case proves nothing. But it sure seemed to me the article that DH linked to has some merit based on the exert that TASmart mentioned in his post.

49er

49er wrote:From the journals article:

""PD patients generally have a reduced prevalence of OSA. According to our analysis, these results are primarily due to the lower BMI of PD patients when compared with the general population controls.""

This statement alone would make me have questions about the validity of the study as a thin person with sleep apnea. Of course, I could be missing other relevant information but I just wanted to point that out.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Personally, though, I see no contradiction in the statement quoted and the fact that some thin people have OSA.

It is true that being overweight does not automatically mean you have OSA, and it is true that being less-than-overweight does not automatically mean you are OSA-free. Nevertheless, my understanding, scientifically speaking, is that there IS still a statistical connection between BMI and likelihood of OSA, which cannot be ignored in the data. And that is true independent of the questions of cause/effect or reason for correlation. Therefore, I have no problem with the statement quoted.

But hey, just me.

As for the quote from the article that mentioned "40%," nothing was provided by the article to back up that guestimate in comparison with statistically matched populations who do NOT have PD, so it does not, to me, establish any reason to suspect OSA to be more prevalent with PD sufferers in comparison to similar populations.

That said, I would support everyone on the planet being tested for OSA and treated, so I hope that article does a lot of good for those who suffer from PD and also happen to suffer from OSA.

""As for the quote from the article that mentioned "40%," nothing was provided by the article to back up that guestimate in comparison with statistically matched populations who do NOT have PD, so it does not, to me, establish any reason to suspect OSA to be more prevalent with PD sufferers in comparison to similar populations. ""

Good point.

There may be no causal relationship either way, but it seems that having OSA does not mean
you cannot also also have a coincidental comordidity---something you want your doctors to watch for.
Some folks have really horrible luck, and schmucks with shingles are a MENACE.

I don't have Parkinson's. I do have ms. I had a relapse of facial/palate/throat weakness that increased my pressure 2 inches in about 12 hours (and looked pretty scary to boot). Weakness can absolutely cause an increase in OSA. At that time I had no clue how to change the pressure, so got zero sleep for a week until I figured it out. I probably should have looked for a CPAP community then .

https://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/n ... sroom/9230

It's not a huge leap to think that the same sort of thing would happen in Parksinsons. Lack of coordination is a Parkinson's thing .. and coordination is important when breathing.

To Juile and everybody else. Just remember that no doctor knew what Sleep Apnea was or considered snoring a medical issue half a century ago!

My point is that doctors were not infallible then, and they aren't now!

xxyzx wrote: really ?
test everyone on the planet for OSA ???

how about testing those who have signs or symptoms that OSA might be a problem
and spend all that other money on treating some real problems instead of wasting it on people without an apnea problem to discover they are just fine sleeping
but have other serious problems that could have been diagnosed if they didnt waste their time in some sleep lab which was outrageously expensive and uncomfortable plus making us sleep hours before our normal bedtimes for the convenience of the tekkies in the lab

I wish I had been tested at least 20 years earlier. That could have gotten treatment started before my blood pressure became resistant to medication. It would have helped me with more energy and better health *before* I gained weight, thus having a much more active lifestyle the last 25 years. I don't know when I started snoring, but I know I had sleep issues when I was in college. I assumed I was just a night owl (and I still am), but I wonder if I was avoiding sleep because part of me knew it was bad. And then it became permanent. If that is the case, I could have been a normal morning person. I could have graduated with the degree I wanted, got the type of job I wanted, and have a totally different life than I have now. As it is, I have turned down job offers and promotions because they require early morning hours, and I become a zombie if I try to pretend to be a morning person for more than a week or two. I have to recover from vacations if I travel since I have to fight my circadian rhythms for the whole vacation. I had to learn to accept that I am will always be a night owl because fighting it will cause more harm. If I could do it over again, I would have been tested for sleep apnea while in college. Back when I showed signs of sleep deprivation. I assumed it was just lack of sleep, but I think it was more, and that really changed my life.

Wouldn't it be better to catch sleep apnea when it is mild and get it treated on a regular basis rather than waiting until it is severe enough to be noticed as more than aging?

If, twenty years ago, they had the type of machines and masks they do today, I would have started treatment then. When I did my first sleep study then, the machines were much larger than they are today, and the only mask they offered me was a nasal mask, and I am a mouth breather. At that time, my job required a lot of air travel, and the cpap machines then would have been harder to pack and carry around the country with me. I was already carrying a nebulizer machine for asthma treatment and I didn't want to have something else to pack and carry with me. I opted for UPPP surgery instead.