My response is to a minor part of your (Maxine) communication to the PD
list, namely the complaint of the patient's knocking things off of the
nightstand and "punching" you. These symptoms are similar to ones I have
(I was diagnosed with PD about five years ago) and if the nightstand
knocking and wife-punching symptoms are related to a dream, the condition is
called "REM Sleep Behavior Disorder."
REM sleep (when dreams principally occur) is characterized by an
inactivation of most muscles (atonia), so that dreams are not acted out. In
REM sleep behavior disorder (or REM without atonia), the patient dreams of
someone pointing a gun at him, to which in the dream he responds by "hitting
the deck" and finds that he has in fact landed on the floor next to the bed.
Or he kicks both in the dream and in reality at someone chasing him. In
some cases it can be life-threatening to the patient (if he jumps out of a
window) or possibly even to the spouse. Whether it is associated with PD or
with the medication, or to neither, I don't know.
There is an effective treatment (a benzodiazipine) which I don't use
because my episodes are infrequent (although I do sleep-talk almost
continually during rem sleep) and I don't know how the drug would interact
with PD or the drugs I take for it.
If my description "fits" I could provide you with references.
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