Sleep in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of polysomnographic findings

This study explores the polysomnographic differences between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients and healthy controls.

An electronic literature search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, All EBM databases, Web of Science, and CNKI from inception to Oct 2022.

Meta-analyses revealed significant reductions in sleep efficiency, total sleep time, N2%, slow wave sleep percentage, minimum SpO₂, and mean SpO₂, and increases in wake time after sleep onset and N1%, sleep latency, rapid eye movement sleep latency, time spent with SpO₂ < 90%, oxygen desaturation index, and apnea hypopnea index in ALS patients compared with controls. Sensitivity analyses showed that some heterogeneity was explained by excluding patients taking medications impacting sleep, whether studies employed an adaptation night, and the use of different PSG scoring rules.

Significant polysomnographic abnormalities are present in ALS. Our findings underscore the need for a comprehensive PSG assessment of sleep changes in ALS patients. When performing PSG examinations in ALS, whether the patients are taking medication impacting sleep and the scoring system used should be considered.