Comparison of sleep variables between chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain, insomnia, periodic leg movements syndrome and control subjects in a clinical sleep medicine practice.

Background: Between 50% and 89% of chronic pain patients report unrefreshing sleep. The aim of this retrospective analysis was to compare the sleep of normal subjects with the sleep of a clinical population presenting musculoskeletal chronic widespread pain (CWP), psychophysiological insomnia and restless legs syndrome/periodic limb movements during sleep (RLS/PLMS) in order to identify sleep variables that may explain the poor sleep complaints of CWP patients.

Methods: Sleep data from 10 normal subjects and 37 patients (mean age 55+/-3 yo), matched for age and sex, were retrieved from our sleep data bank.