Effect of different severity of restless legs syndrome on sleep and mood of elderly male

Abstract

Objectives To investigate the effect of different severity of restless legs syndrome (RLS) symptoms on sleep and mood of elderly male.Methods A cross-sectional controlled study,one hundred and fourteen elder male patients confirm diagnosed as RLS were divided into severe,moderate and mild groups based on scores of the RLS symptom severity scale,65 non-RLS male elders matched with age,education,marriage were selected as control group.Sleep and mood index were compared among each RLS group and control group.Results Significant differences were found in PSQI global score,sleep latency,sleep duration,sleep efficiency,nocturnal awake frequency,scores of ESS and HAD scores,between severe RLS group and control group (P ＜ 0.05).When mild and moderate RLS group was compared to control group respectively,only scores of ESS were found significantly different(P ＜ 0.05).Correlation and regression analysis showed that PSQI global score,sleep latency,sleep duration,sleep efficiency,nocturnal awake frequency and scores of ESS were significantly related to severity of RLS symptoms respectively,while no mood items correlated with severity of RLS symptoms.Conclusions Severe RLS impact sleep quality of the elderly male patients (including sleep efficiency,sleep time,daytime),senile male patients with RLS have got poor function during daytime,but it is not up to the standard of the diagnosis of EDS.Severe RLS can cause some impact on patients' emotion. Key words: Restless leg syndrome ; Severity ; Sleep ; Mood