Advert wakes GPs up to the problem of restless legs
pharmafile | September 28, 2004 | News story | |Â Â Â
A new advertising campaign sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline aims to raise awareness in the medical profession of Restless Legs Syndrome, a sleep disorder that is said to affect more than a million people in the UK.
Sufferers of the syndrome are woken during sleep by an intense need to move their legs, a sensation usually accompanied by a 'creepy-crawly' or burning feeling which can only be relieved by walking or other movement.
Despite being relatively common, research shows the condition often goes undiagnosed or untreated, which the new advert aims to put right by promoting awareness among GPs as part of a wider disease awareness campaign.
GSK is now preparing to file ropinirole – already marketed for Parkinson's disease as ReQuip – as the first ever licensed treatment for the disease in the UK.
Research led by Dr Wayne Hening of New York found that when RLS sufferers are treated, they are often given drugs licensed for gout, cramps, painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs and tranquillisers.
"Many of these medications are not appropriate first line treatments for the symptoms of RLS," said Dr Hening and colleagues.
"In most countries, sufferers, regardless of diagnosis, were prescribed therapies not known to be effective in RLS," they added.
In the UK, the condition is also known as the Ekbom Support Group, after the Swedish neurologist Karl-Axel Ekbom who first described the condition in the 1940s.
Eileen Gill, founder of the Ekbom Support Group and a lifelong sufferer of the condition said many people endure "a merry-go-round of tests and visits" to doctors but are never told they have RLS, and are given sleeping pills or antidepressants, which do not work.
She concluded: "It sounds trivial or even funny to people who don't have it, but RLS causes misery and drives some people to consider suicide. It is long overdue that more is done about it."
