Daytime somnolence in patients with Parkinson's disease

We studied daytime sleepiness in 160 patients with Parkinson's disease and 40 normal subjects. We compared the prevalence of daytime sleepiness in pat ients who were taking levodopa alone, levodopa with bromocriptine, levodopa with ropinirole, and levodopa with pramipexole, We found that (1) all thes e anti-Parkinson drugs can cause daytime sleepiness; (2) 'dozing off' corre lated highly with 'falling asleep without warning'; (3) after statistical a djustment for confounding variables there was no significant difference amo ng the risks for any of these anti-Parkinson drugs causing daytime somnolen ce. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.