PROGRESSION OF MOTOR AND COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT IN PARKINSONS-DISEASE

We performed a longitudinal study (mean follow-up 86.7 months) to eval uate motor and mental deterioration in patients with Parkinson's disea se. Of the original 91 patients, only 61 could be re-examined 7 years later and 11 of these had become demented (PD-Dems). PD-Dems were olde r with worse motor and, obviously, cognitive performance than non-deme nted parkinsonian patients (PDs). A global cognitive decay index (DI) was calculated for each patient. Based on this, non-demented PDs were further split into 38 stable parkinsonian patients (S-PDs) with DI -30 % to +30%, and 10 deteriorated but non-demented parkinsonian patients (D-PDs) with a DI worse than -30% (as had PD-Dems). D-PDs were older a nd had greater motor impairment than S-PDs but did not differ from PD- Dems on these measures. D-PDs and PD-Dems deteriorated especially in a ttention, visuospatial and executive ability tests. Ageing seems to be the main predictive factor for mental deterioration.