Category: Parkinson's Disease: Non-Motor Symptoms
Objective: We aimed to investigate how the severity of apathy affects motor symptom and other non-motor symptoms in patients with de-novo Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Background: Apathy is a common non-motor symptom of PD that may associate with motor symptoms in PD patients. The severity of apathy is associated with decrease of treatment effect and impairs quality of life. However, most studies were conducted in advanced stage of PD, and the clinical implication of apathy in early PD is still lacking.
Method: In this retrospective study, we investigated de-novo PD patients at Asan Medical Center from March 2021 to December 2022. We analyzed baseline demographics, severity of motor symptom assessed by Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scales (UPDRS) part III, apathy assessed by Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES), and quality of life assessed by The Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). Additionally, we investigated non-motor symptoms other than apathy using Non-Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS), which includes 8 subscores (cardiovascular, sleep and fatigue, mood, problem, hallucination, attention and memory, gastrointestinal symptoms, urinary symptoms, and miscellaneous).
Results: We enrolled 68 patients with de-novo PD, including 38 female (55.9%), with mean age of 64.7 ± 9.9 years. The mean severity of motor symptoms, assessed by UPDRS part III, was 22.4 ± 11.1 and mean AES was 44.8 ± 7.9. In the univariable linear regression analysis, the severity of motor symptoms was significantly associated with apathy (beta = 0.469, P < 0.001). Also, the severity of apathy was significantly associated with non-motor symptoms, assessed using NMSS, BDI, HADS, and PDQ-39. In the multivariable linear regression analysis, the severity of sleep symptoms was significantly associated with AES score (beta = 2.999, P = 0.008) among eight subgroup of NMSS.
Conclusion: In this study, we found that the severity of apathy is associated motor and non-motor symptoms in de-novo PD patients. Further researches are required to find the pathomechanism connecting apathy, sleep problem, and quality of life in de-novo PD patients.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
S. Lee, S. Jo, J. Lee, S. Chung. Apathy correlated with motor and non-symptoms in de-novo patients with Parkinson’s disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2023; 38 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/apathy-correlated-with-motor-and-non-symptoms-in-de-novo-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed June 15, 2025.« Back to 2023 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/apathy-correlated-with-motor-and-non-symptoms-in-de-novo-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/