Abstract
Background
A variety of symptoms may precede the classical motor features of Parkinson disease
(PD). However, it is not known whether cognitive dysfunction precedes the motor phase
of PD. We examined whether patients with incident PD had had global cognitive function
disturbances three years prior to diagnosis when compared with matched controls in
a cohort of community-dwelling subjects.
Methods
All participants were age 65 years or older (median 76 years) and were enrolled in the Neurological Disorders in Central Spain (NEDICES)
study in central Spain. We identified all participants with incident PD (N=23), diagnosed in the follow-up examination (1997–1998), who had performed an expanded
37-item version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (37-MMSE) at the baseline evaluation
(1994–1995). These 23 were 1:4 matched to 92 controls.
Results
Baseline 37-MMSE scores were 27.9±4.9 (28) in PD patients and 28.7±6.5 (31) in controls (p=0.212). There were no patient–control differences in orientation, immediate recall,
attention and calculation, memory recall, language, or visuospatial copying. In analyses
that adjusted for several possible confounding factors, there were no case–control
differences.
Conclusions
In this population-based sample, patients with incident PD did not have evidence of
significant global cognitive function disturbances three years prior to their diagnosis
when compared with matched controls. Our data suggest that global cognitive dysfunction
does not precede the diagnosis of PD.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 30, 2011
Accepted:
May 8,
2011
Received in revised form:
April 20,
2011
Received:
March 14,
2011
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
