Objective: To determine whether symptoms of insomnia, somnolence, apnea, and restless legs syndrome predict the diagnosis of parkinsonism after three years of follow-up.

Background: Earlier detection of parkinsonism, specifically during its prodromal stage, may be key to preventing its progression. Previous studies have produced contradictory results on the association between sleep symptoms and prodromal Parkinson’s disease and parkinsonism.

Method: At baseline participants completed screens for diverse sleep symptoms, including difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, daytime somnolence, snoring/stopping breathing during sleep, and symptoms of restless legs syndrome. After 3 years of follow-up, baseline responses from participants who self-reported a new diagnosis of parkinsonism (cases) were compared to who did not (controls). For each case, 10 controls were matched by age, sex, education, BMI, caffeine, smoking, and alcohol. Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate the association between sleep symptoms and new-onset parkinsonism, adjusting for age, sex, education, BMI, smoking, alcohol, and caffeine.

Results: We evaluated 58 incident parkinsonism cases and 580 matched controls (65.5% male, mean age=69.60, SD=8.0). Cases and controls had similar frequency of sleep-onset insomnia (12.1% vs. 13.0%, Adjusted OR[95%CI]=0.87[0.32,2.33]), sleep-maintenance insomnia (24.1% vs. 20.2%, AOR=1.01[0.46,2.20]), daytime somnolence (8.6% vs.7.4%, AOR=1.11[0.37,3.39]), obstructive sleep apnea (27.3% vs. 26.2%, AOR=0.84[0.40,1.79]), and restless leg syndrome (20.6% vs. 9.9%, AOR=1.34[0.42,4.25]).

Conclusion: Symptoms of insomnia, somnolence, apnea, and restless legs were not associated with future diagnosis of parkinsonism.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/sleep-disorders-and-future-diagnosis-of-parkinsonism-a-prospective-study-using-the-canadian-longitudinal-study-on-aging/