June 27, 2012 Smoking, head injury, pesticide exposure, farming
and less education may be risk factors for a rare sleep disorder
that causes people to kick or punch during sleep, according to a
study published in the June 27, 2012, online issue of Neurology,
the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. People
with the disorder, called REM sleep behavior disorder, do not
have the normal lack of muscle tone that occurs during rapid eye
movement (REM) sleep, causing them to act out their dreams. The
movements can sometimes be violent, causing injury to the person
or their bed partner. The disorder is estimated to occur in 0.5
percent of adults. “Until now, we didn’t know much about the
risk factors for this disorder, except that it was more common
in men and in older people,” said study author Ronald B.
Postuma, MD, MSc, with the Research Institute of the McGill
University Health Centre (MUHC) in Montreal and a member of the
American Academy of Neurology. “Because it is a rare disorder,
it was diffi