Differentiating Nocturnal Movements: Leg Movements, Parasomnias, and Seizures

The need to evaluate nocturnal movements is a common clinical problem in the practice of sleep medicine. Because reports of the movements occurring during sleep typically cannot be relayed by the patients themselves, the event descriptions often become second hand during evaluation by a sleep medicine clinician. Use of polysomnography, at times with use of specialized techniques, becomes an integral part of the diagnosis of these movements. This article describes the clinical steps involved in the diagnostic plan and reviews the most common sleep-related movements and their polysomnographic findings.