Waking after leg jerks linked to brief ventricular tachycardia
Overactivity of the sympathetic nervous system may link the two events, say researchers
15th August 2019
People who are wakened by repetitive leg movements during sleep may more than double their chance of having a brief episode of ventricular tachycardia soon afterwards, researchers report.
US researchers investigated the association of periodic limb movement disorder and episodes of discrete non-sustained ventricular tachycardia in more than 2900 older men (mean age 76) participating in an ongoing sleep study.
They homed in on 49 of the men, who had a total of 141 episodes of non-sustained ventricular tachycardia.