Objective: To describe the association amongst depression, anxiety, psychosis with cognitive impairment in Mexican people living with Parkinson’s disease (PwP).

Background: Cognitive impairment and neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are frequent in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) [1]. Depression, anxiety, and apathy are reported to be the most prevalent NPS. Cognitive impairment is also common, with approximately 25% of PD patients without dementia having mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and up to 80% of patients progressing to dementia eventually [2]. Clinicians should focus on the emotional and its relation with cognitive impairment, as well as the motor manifestations of the disease [3].

Method: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out. 126 Mexican PD patients (57.9% males; 63.7 ± 11.2 years-old) were included. Cognition was evaluated with the Mexican version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), depression and anxiety were assessed using the Hamilton Rating Scales (HAM-D and HAM-A), and psychosis was rated using the domain of perceptual problems/hallucinations from the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale (MDS-NMSS). Spearman correlation (rs) was used.

Results: Mean disease duration was 7.5 ± 5. Mean scores for MDS-UPDRS, MoCA, HAM-D, HAM-A, and NMSS-4 were 21.66 ±4.9, 6.4 ±5.6, 7.1 ±6.3, 0.73 ± 2.8, respectively. Spearman’s correlation showed moderate inverse correlation between the MoCA and HAM-D score (rs=-0.21, p=0.016) as well as with the HAM-A score , (rs=-0.27, p=0.002). There was no correlation between NMSS domain 4 and MoCA (rs=0.28, p=0.944), HAM-D (rs=0.14, p=0.116) nor HAM-A (rs=0.12, p=0.164).

Conclusion: PD was formerly considered a motor disorder; nevertheless, non-motor symptoms are frequently present as PD is now known as a multisystemic degenerative disease. Taking into account neuropsychiatric symptoms, which showed correlation with cognitive impairment, is as important as considering motor symptoms in order to provide an integrated care approach por people living with PD.

References: [1] Weintraub D, Simuni T, Caspell-Garcia C, et al. Cognitive performance and neuropsychiatric symptoms in early, untreated Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord. 2015;30(7):919-27.
[2] de la Riva P, Smith K, Xie SX, et al. Course of psychiatric symptoms and global cognition in early Parkinson disease. Neurology. 2014;83(12):1096-103.
[3] Aarsland D, Larsen JP, Lim NG, et ala. Range of neuropsychiatric disturbances in patients with Parkinson’s disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1999;67(4):492-6.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/correlation-between-cognitive-impairment-and-neuropsychiatric-symptoms-in-mexican-persons-living-with-parkinsons-disease/