Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the quality of life and drooling in Parkinson’s disease patients.

Background: Parkinson’s disease is a chronic progressive degenerative disorder. The main features is bradykinesia associated with rigidity and/or resting tremor(1). Along them, there are other motor and non-motor symptoms as well. Dysfunction of autonomic nervous system is common in Parkinson’s disease patients.(2) Drooling pathophysiology is not currently well understand, but impaired salivary clearance has probably a major contribution(3).

Method: We have studied a lot of 31 patients with clinically established Parkinson’s disease using Movement Disorder Society Clinical Diagnostic Criteria for Parkinson’s disease (4). The stages of the disease varied between 1 and 5 Hoehn and Yahr stage, with a majority of patients in stage 3 of the disease. Drooling was assessed with NMSQ (Non-motor Symptoms Questionnaire for Parkinson’s Disease) questionnaire and the quality of life with PDQ8 ( 8-item Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire) questionnaire(5)(6). The statistical analysis was realized with IBM SPSS Statistics V20 and we use Pearson correlation coefficient with a significant level of p<0.05 to determine the correlations between drooling and QoL on this patients.

Results: The analysis of our data reveals a positive correlation between drooling and the Hoehn and Yahr stage with a p value of 0.01. This shows us that there is a link between this autonomic dysfunction and the evolution of the disease. The presence of this symptom was strongly correlate with low QoL measured with PDQ8 questionnaire with a p value <0.01, especially with the communication domain.

Conclusion: This study shows that drooling in Parkinson’s disease influences the QoL mainly by reducing the communication ability of these patients.

References: 1. Wong, S. L., Gilmour, H. & Ramage-Morin, P. L. Parkinson’s disease: Prevalence, diagnosis and impact. Heal. reports 25, 10–4 (2014). 2. Sauerbier, A. & Ray Chaudhuri, K. Non-motor symptoms: the core of multi-morbid Parkinson’s disease. Br. J. Hosp. Med. (Lond). 75, 18–24 (2014). 3. Srivanitchapoom, P., Pandey, S. & Hallett, M. Drooling in Parkinson’s disease: a review. Parkinsonism Relat. Disord. 20, 1109–18 (2014). 4. Postuma, R. B. et al. MDS clinical diagnostic criteria for Parkinson’s disease. Mov. Disord. 30, 1591–1601 (2015). 5. Goldman, J. G. & Postuma, R. Premotor and nonmotor features of Parkinsonʼs disease. Curr. Opin. Neurol. 27, 434–441 (2014). 6. Breen, K. C. & Drutyte, G. Non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease: the patient’s perspective. J. Neural Transm. 120, 531–535 (2013).

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/correlation-between-drooling-and-quality-of-life-in-parkinsons-disease/