Some time ago, a 67-year-old uncle because of the right upper limb involuntary shaking, walking significantly slower, he wore clothes buttons need help from others, accompanied by his family to Huaxi, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
In the process of recounting the medical history, the family said that the uncle often "shouted and screamed" in the middle of the night, and sometimes even "punched and kicked"; but the uncle seemed to be dreaming, and when he woke up, he didn't know anything.
Nightmares are frequent when sleeping at night, and with dreams, shouting, punching and kicking, and in severe cases, they can even fall out of bed and be injured. It is a sleep disorder commonly found in people over the age of 50 and an early warning sign of Pre-Parkinson's disease, known in medical terms as "LEM Sleep Disorder."
When dreaming, the brain nerve cells are more active, people can feel vivid dreams in dreams, see strange scenes, experience some plots, then the eyeballs rotate left and right under the eyelids, so this stage of sleep is called "fast eye movement sleep". At this stage, the muscles of the whole body are completely relaxed (so it is just a rapid movement of the eyes, and the body does not have special movements), and this relaxation is done through the regulation of the neural nuclei of the brainstem.
Rapid eye movement sleep period behavioral disorder refers to the fact that in the dreaming stage, the nerve nuclei that regulate muscle relaxation cannot "perform their duties" normally, so the muscles of the whole body are not completely relaxed, resulting in patients involuntarily showing the movements seen in the dream, resulting in limb dancing, waving, kicking, accompanied by frightened shouts, and even jumping from bed.
So why are these neuronuclear groups "derelict" in their duties? This is due to the appearance of a substance called synuclein in the patient's brainstem, which affects the normal function of the cell and causes apoptosis of the cell. Over time, the accumulation of the substance will gradually develop and expand, and when it affects the neural nuclei of the midbrain motor regulation circuit, the action of dancing will occur.
The nuclei inside the brain also gradually change due to the influence of such substances, leading to the emergence of various Parkinson's symptoms. Therefore, medically believes that "fast eye movement sleep period behavior disorder" is actually an early danger signal for Parkinson's disease, which must be paid attention to. If you find that the people around you have frequent nightmares, shouting, punching and kicking, etc., you must go to the hospital in time.