Today, perhaps the priority for you was first to stay calm or even in bed, with a book for example. Well know that it is a chance, an almost inaccessible happiness for people who suffer from restless legs syndrome. The explanations of Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Health magazine on France 5.
franceinfo: A French team has just published a study on the significant psychological consequences of this little-known disease?
Geraldine Zamansky : Absolutely, the team of Pr Yves Dauvilliers, at the University Hospital of Montpellier, closely followed the psychological state of 529 patients suffering from this syndrome, during the months which followed the start of their care. They compared their results with those of people of the same age in the general population, without any particular health problem during the same period.
And it’s impressive. Let’s first recall what this actually misunderstood disease consists of. It causes sensations that some call “impatience”. They are like stings or tingles, usually in the legs, and they only get better if the person moves.
It affects at least 3% of the population and starts from the age of 40-50, with stronger symptoms at the end of the day, but also at night. Which ruins sleep. It’s so strange that people find it hard to describe what they feel. So they remain in pain for a long time, without diagnosis or treatment.
So we can imagine that this can really have consequences on their morale, and even we can say it, on their mental health?
This is indeed what the Montpellier study shows. This pathology multiplies by 6 the risk of having symptoms of depression, and by 3, that of having suicidal thoughts. Professor Dauvilliers explained to me that it was strongly linked to the deterioration of sleep, which is very dangerous for mental health.
However, 80% of patients affected by restless legs syndrome suffered from insomnia at the start of the study. Some hardly sleep at all. The good news is that there are now treatments. Because we are beginning to understand that this disease is linked to a lack of iron, and to the disruption of certain communications between neurons. It is dopamine that is involved. Very subtle rebalancing really does improve the symptoms.
And this improvement chases away dark thoughts?
Yes, for depressive episodes, but not for suicidal thoughts. And the team of researchers did not expect it, as if their patients were ashamed of it and had not spoken to them about it, outside of this study. These results therefore underline the importance of psychological follow-up, in addition to other treatments. And above all, we need to talk more about this pathology, because many people suffer for years before being diagnosed!
>>> The study is chargeable but summarized on the Inserm site
>>> Information on the patient association website.