Jiménez-Jiménez F J, Velasco I, de Toledo M, Sayed Y, Zurdo J, Ortí-Pareja M
Servico de Neurología, Hospital Principe de Asturias, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.
Rev Neurol. 2002;34(12):1140-1.
Recently, there have been report sleep attacks in parkinsonian patients as a side effect of pramipexole and ropinirole. We report a patient with similar episodes related with pergolide.
A 64 year old man with rigid akinetic parkinsonism, treated with carbidopa/levodopa and pergolide, developed sudden, irresistible sleep episodes after increasing the dose of pergolide to 2.25 mg/day because of bad control of parkinsonian symptoms. These episodes started 30 minutes after each dose of pergolide and lasted 2 hours. Following reduction of the dose of pergolide to 1.5 mg/day the sleep episodes disappeared. Two double blind multiple sleep latency tests were performed, one after intaking pergolide and other after intaking placebo.
The latencies to sleep onset were lower with pergolide than with placebo, but the differences did not reach statistical significance. There was no premature REM sleep onset.
Sleep episodes are likely a not specific effect of dopamine agonists
