The desire to move the extremities in association with unpleasant sensations. Patients most often characterize these paresthesias as uncomfortable but usually not painful, although a significant minority of patients report some of these sensations as painful. Far less often, unusual sensations may also be present in the trunk or genital area. The sensations may be bilateral or unilateral and their predominant location may shift in individual patients, even during a single bout of symptoms.
Patients move to relieve limb discomfort.
Such movements are often stereotypical and repetitive and may include walking or pacing, rocking, shaking, tossing and turning in bed, leg stretching, leg flexions, deep knee bends, marching in place, or cyclical body rocking. Symptoms are usually substantially, if not completely, relieved by walking or other motor activities. However, they may recur shortly or even immediately after the patient stops moving and rests. Symptoms are worse in the evening or night. The diagnosis of RLS requires that all four features of these minimal feature above be present at some point in the course of the disorder.