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Periodic Limb Movement Disorder

Repetitive, rhythmic limb movements during sleep that trigger micro-arousals, often without the person noticing.

Nocturnal · Underdiagnosed
Published: 18.07.2026
Periodic Limb Movement Disorder

The general-population estimate is around 4%, but diagnosis requires polysomnography and the exclusion of other causes: true prevalence is uncertain.

How it works

The limbs move at regular intervals during sleep; each movement can set off a micro-arousal that is not remembered. The result is rest continuously interrupted below the threshold of awareness.

On the road

The person does not know why they are tired: they sleep enough by the clock but do not recover. Unexplained daytime sleepiness follows - and it is precisely when sleepiness has no explanation that a sleep assessment becomes useful.

Drive Awake connection

Like apnoea and restless legs, it is a disorder of quality: sleep is there but crumbles. Drive Awake lines it up with the others to show how many different roads reach the same point.

Ohayon MM, Roth T - Prevalence of restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movement disorder in the general population. J Psychosom Res, 2002. DOI 10.1016/S0022-3999(02)00443-9
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