It was on February 22, 1997 that the first Restless legs syndrome (RLS) Scientific Meeting was held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C. A decade ago, RLS was anything but a household name. Because of this, the then five-year-old RLS Foundation decided to organize a meeting to spark interest in this relatively unheard of condition among top level researchers in other fields. The RLS Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, is dedicated to improving the lives of the men, women, and children who live with this often devastating disease. The organization's goals are to increase awareness of restless legs syndrome, to improve treatments, and, through research, find a cure. The purpose of this proposal is to request the National Institute of Health's support to convene a second scientific meeting on RLS. The last ten years have seen incredible progress in the study of RLS. Researchers, funded in part of the RLS Foundation, recently announced the discovery of the first gene variant that contributes substantially to risk for RLS. We also now understand that RLS correlates heavily with iron deficiencies in the brain's substantial nigra, something that we did not understand ten years ago. In addition, healthcare providers now have excellent epidemiology information that: a) identifies the exact questions one must ask to get an accurate diagnosis of RLS;and b) pinpoints the incidence of RLS in the American population. The goals of this second meeting would be to: (1) bring RLS Foundation grantee recipients together to summarize what has been done in the past 10 years;(2) evaluate the existing hypotheses and consider the development of new hypotheses as to the cause of RLS;(3) attract new researchers into the field of RLS;and (4) develop research priorities and articulate areas of focus for the RLS Foundation's research program.
The RLS Science Meeting reflects the goals of Healthy People 2010: Disability and Secondary Conditions. The goal of the meeting to create a roadmap for future RLS research is contained within the HP 2010 goal to promote the health of people with disabilities, prevent secondary conditions, and eliminate disparities between people with and without disabilities in the United States.
