Objective

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a movement disorder characterized by an urge to move the legs unpleasantly. Although the underlying mechanism of this disease is still unknown, dysfunction of dopaminergic system is blamed to be the one of the possible cause for the syndrome. Heart rate turbulence (HRT) is used for evaluating changes in cardiac autonomic functions and also used to provide risk stratification in cardiac and non-cardiac diseases.

The aim of this study is to evaluate cardiac autonomic functions in patients with RLS.

Methods

Thirty-three (mean age 53±8 years) RLS patients and 30 (mean age 57±8 years) control subjects were included to the study. Twenty-four hour ambulatory electrocardiogram recordings were taken using Pathfinder Software Version V8.255 (Reynolds Medical). HRT parameters, Turbulence Onset (TO) and Turbulence Slope (TS) were calculated with HRT! View Version 0.60-0.1 software.

Methods

Thirty-three (mean age 53±8 years) RLS patients and 30 (mean age 57±8 years) control subjects were included to the study. Twenty-four hour ambulatory electrocardiogram recordings were taken using Pathfinder Software Version V8.255 (Reynolds Medical). HRT parameters, Turbulence Onset (TO) and Turbulence Slope (TS) were calculated with HRT! View Version 0.60-0.1 software.