Stages 1–2 non–rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder associated with dementia: A new parasomnia?

Abstract

A 55-year-old woman with a progressive dementia and frontal syndrome was hospitalized because she was agitated every night after falling asleep (spoke, laughed, cried, tapped, kicked, walked, and fell down). She slept 5.5 hours during video polysomnography, but the theta rhythm electroencephalograph recording typical of sleep stages 1 to 2 and the spindles and K-complexes typical of sleep stage 2 contrasted with continuous muscular twitching, prominent rapid eye movements, vocalizations, and continuous, complex, purposeful movements typical of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder. This newly described stages 1--2 non-REM sleep behavior disorder suggests that central motor pattern generators were disinhibited during non-REM sleep.