A study involving 22 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients has shown that use of the dopaminergic drug levodopa improves sleep quality. When the patients took the drug, the number of times they woke up during the night fell 25% and the amount of time they remained awake fell 30% on average. The investigation was conducted with FAPESP's support by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil, and the University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA) in France.
An article reporting the results is published in the Journal of Sleep Research . The sleep-wake patterns of PD patients were monitored during four nights with the aid of a wearable actigraph, a wristwatch-like sensor that detects movement. The volunteers were evaluated for three nights after taking the drug and one without it.
Curiously, subjective information provided by the PD patients did not suggest any difference in sleep quality with and without the drug, in contrast with the actigraphy results. This was the first study to evaluate the effects of the drug on sleep quality in PD patients objectively [ using equipment ] and to compare them with the results reported subjectively. The actigraphic readings pointed to an improvement in sleep quality after the patients took the drug, although they themselves didn't experience any benefit.
This is important from the standpoint of clinical care. Clinicians should take these findings into account when deciding whether to administer levodopa to PD patients before they go to bed.