Treatment of periodic leg movements with a dopaminergic agonist in subjects with total spinal cord lesions

• Autor(a) principal: Mello, Marco Tulio de [UNIFESP]
• Data de Publicação: 1999
• Outros Autores: Poyares, Dalva Lucia [UNIFESP], Tufik, Sergio [UNIFESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.sc.3100909; http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/26131
• topic: sleep; spinal cord lesion(s); L-dopa; periodic leg movements (PLM); paraplegic; restless legs syndrome (RLS)

Objective: To investigate the effect of L-dopa on the PLM/h index of spinal cord injured subjects.Setting: São Paulo, Brazil.Methods: Thirteen male volunteers with spinal cord section between T7-T12, and mean age of 31.6 +/- 8.3 years participated in the study. L-dopa or placebo were administered for 30 days, 1 h before the volunteers went to sleep, in a double blind, crossover design. Polysomnographic recordings were performed on ten occasions: Phase I: Basal night, following an adaptation night at the sleep laboratory; phase 2: after 1, 7, 21 and 30 days of L-dopa administration; phase 3: first night of L-dopa or placebo withdrawal; phase IV: 1, 7, 21 and 30 days after placebo ingestion.Results: the index of PLM/h on the first night of L-dopa or placebo withdrawal (phase III) was lower than on both the basal night and the first night of L-dopa treatment, At the time of polysomnographic analysis, volunteers were divided into two groups: index of PLM/h below five and those whose index was above five. Comparison between L-dopa and placebo treatments revealed that only those volunteers with an index above five revealed a reduction in PLM in L-dopa.Conclusion: These results indicate that despite the spinal cord lesions, L-dopa treatment is capable of minimizing PLM during sleep.