Diagnosis of REM sleep behavior disorder by video-polysomnographic study: is one night enough?

Study Objectives: Clinical features of RBD were typically episodic with limited data on the night-to-night reliability of the diagnostic video-PSGs. We aimed to assess on whether a single night study was adequate.

Design: Retrospective review.

Setting: Sleep laboratory.

Participants: 55 RBD patients with at least 2 consecutive video-PSGs.

Interventions: N/A.

Methods: We analyzed 2 consecutive video-PSGs using REM-related EMG activity (REMREEA), REM sleep without atonia (RSWA), and video analysis of motor events.

Measurements And Results: A weak first night effect with increased REM sleep latency, increased stage 1 sleep, and increased arousal index were found. No differences were found in phasic and tonic EMG activity scores between night 1 and night 2. The presence of OSAS, use of CPAP, and clonazepam treatment did not affect the night-to-night variability and diagnostic accuracy. The kappas were 0.64, 0.51, and 0.31 between night 1 and night 2 for 10% REMREEA, RSWA, and video analysis respectively. Over 80% of patients could be diagnosed by various criteria in the first night, but the diagnostic ability could be enhanced to nearly 95% when combining PSG with video analysis. While both of the EMG criteria as well as the combination criteria had good reliability, video-analysis had poorer night-to-night reliability.

Conclusions: A single night of video-PSG was adequate in the diagnosis of RBD in most clinical patients and the combination of PSG and video analysis could enhance the detection rate further. Our findings have important resource implications.