Parkinson''s patients ''experience sleep benefit''
Sleep can improve the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in some patients, a study conducted in the Netherlands has shown.
Some of the study participants reported that their motor function was better when they awoke in the morning after a night's sleep without medication.
The lead researcher in this study was Dr Sebastiaan Overeem of the Department of Neurology, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre.
"If the subjective experience of sleep benefit is proven to be related to an objective improvement in motor function, this could have considerable clinical benefits," he said.
The benefit of bed rest on Parkinson's disease has been studied in the past, but no consistent variables have been found so far.
Sleep is highly important for those without the disease too, with Dr Timothy Sharp of the Happiness Institute recently explaining that not getting enough time in bed can have a negative impact on people's moods.
Posted by Michael Ewing
