Category: Parkinson's Disease (Other)
Objective: To investigate the prevalence of oral frailty (OF) in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and to explore its clinical examine correlates.
Background: The concept of oral frailty (OF), which focuses on age-related declines in oral function, has been proposed in recent years. While an increasing number of studies have reported on physical, psychological, and social frailty in patients with PD, OF in this population has not yet been investigated.
Method: Patients with PD aged ≥65 years attending our neurology outpatient clinic and classified as Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stages I–III were enrolled. After obtaining written informed consent, demographic and clinical characteristics including age, sex, living arrangement, and PD severity were collected. OF was assessed using the Oral Frailty 5-item Checklist (OF-5). Nutritional status was evaluated according to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria. Clinical characteristics of patients with and without OF risk were compared.
Results: Ninety-six patients were included in the final analysis (48 men and 48 women), with a mean age of 74.7 years. The distribution of H&Y stages was as follows: stage I in 5 patients, stage II in 63 patients, and stage III in 28 patients. Seventeen patients lived alone and 79 lived with others. According to the GLIM criteria, 33% of patients were classified as malnourished. Based on the OF-5 assessment, 56% of participants were identified as being at risk of OF. Among the five OF-5 items, impaired articulation was the most frequently reported (n = 55), followed by subjective oral dryness (n = 36) and perceived difficulty in swallowing (n = 33). When patients were categorized into OF risk and non-risk groups, no significant differences or correlations were observed in demographic characteristics or nutritional status.
Conclusion: This study provides the first investigation of oral frailty in patients with PD. More than half of relatively early-stage PD patients were identified as being at risk of OF, although no clear clinical factors associated with OF risk were identified in this study
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
S. Ueno, R. Kurisaki, Y. Oike, A. Fujimoto, M. Nakao, K. Harada, M. Toda, C. Nagatoshi, N. Tawara, M. Ishizaki, Y. Nishida, Y. Maeda. Oral Frailty in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study Using the OF-5 Checklist [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2026; 41 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/oral-frailty-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease-a-cross-sectional-study-using-the-of-5-checklist/. Accessed October 1, 2026.« Back to 2026 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/oral-frailty-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease-a-cross-sectional-study-using-the-of-5-checklist/