Arm restlessness in patients with restless legs syndrome

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurologic disorder characterized princip ally by leg paresthesia and motor restlessness. Several clinical reports in dicated that many patients with RLS also have arm paresthesia and restlessn ess. In the present study, the incidence of arm restlessness was assessed b y questionnaire in 230 patients diagnosed with idiopathic RLS. Arm restless ness was reported by 48.7% of the patients. Patients with and without arm r estlessness were compared with regard to clinical and polysomnographic para meters. No between-group differences were found for age at onset of RLS, du ration of illness, gender, presence of a family history of RLS, sleep laten cy, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and pe riodic leg movements index d uring sleep. However, arm restlessness was more frequent in patients with s evere RLS. Interestingly, the polysomnographic data failed to differentiate the patients with arm restlessness from those without arm restlessness, ex cept for sleep efficiency, which tended to be lower in patients with arm re stlessness. In conclusion, the results of the present study are in agreemen t with clinical observations that a large proportion of patients with RLS h ave arm restlessness.