Now patients are being told that some of the new drugs they are receiving may trigger potentially dangerous sleep attacks. According to a report in the June 1999 issue of Neurology , the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, eight Parkinson's patients were in car accidents due to sudden sleep attacks while driving. In four patients, sleep attacks also occurred during business meetings and phone calls. Discontinuing the medications eliminated the sleep attacks. Sleep attacks cause patients to fall asleep without warning.
Patients describe attacks as a sudden, irresistible and overwhelming feeling of sleepiness.
However, if a patient is driving an automobile, this side effect is a serious safety issue. Frucht and colleagues noticed by chance that several of their Parkinson's patients had been in car accidents. The eight patients experiencing sleep attacks had normal mental skills, excellent driving records and no history of sleep problems. At the time of their accidents, patients were taking pramipexole an average of seven months. Following the accidents, six patients stopped taking pramipexole and two reduced their doses.