Resumen de Potentially Lethal Behaviors associated with rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder: Review of the literature and forensic implications
Carlos H. Schenck, Samuel Adams Lee, Michel A. Cramer Bornemann, Mark W. Mahowald
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is characterized by loss of the muscle atonia of REM sleep, withrelease of complex and violent behaviors that are often attempted dream-enactments. This study reviewed the literature on RBD with regard to poten-tially lethal behavior. A total of 39–41 clinical cases of RBD associated with potentially lethal behaviors to self and ⁄ or others were found, involvinga child and adults of all age groups, that manifested as choking ⁄ headlock (n = 22–24), defenestration ⁄ near-defenestration (n = 7), and diving frombed (n = 10). A total of 80.8% (n = 21) were males; 19.2% (n = 5) were females; mean age was 65.6 € (SD) 13.8 years (range: 27–81 years, and achild). (Gender ⁄ age data were not listed in the remaining cases.) An etiologic association of RBD with a neurologic disorder (or with pharmacother-apy of psychiatric disorders, n = 4) was present in 21–23 patients. Thus, RBD carries well-documented, potential forensic consequences during RBDepisodes that could possibly have been misinterpreted as suicidal or homicidal behavior
