Session Information
Date: Monday, June 20, 2016
Session Title: Parkinsonism, MSA, PSP (secondary and parkinsonism-plus)
Session Time: 12:30pm-2:00pm
Location: Exhibit Hall located in Hall B, Level 2
Objective: To evaluate the incidence of depressive symptoms in Parkinsonian patients in a large cohort followed at a tertiary movement disorders center.
Background: Despite relative fewer and smaller studies addressing the occurrence of depressive symptoms in atypical Parkinsonian (aPD) patients, depression appears to be more frequent than in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. This study aimed to estimate the incidence of depressive symptoms in Parkinsonian patients.
Methods: We identified a retrospective cohort of aPD patients (MSA, PSP, CBD, and DLB) and age-gender matched PD controls that participated in the UF-INFORM database from 2007-2015. Depressive symptoms at initial and subsequent encounters were evaluated using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Subjects without depression (BDI ≤13) at initial encounter were followed longitudinally and assessed for depressive symptoms. Incidence rate and Kaplan-Meier estimates of cumulative incidence of depressive symptoms were determined across the different groups.
Results: We identified 69 CBS, 60 DLB, 130 MSA, 102 PSP, and 2352 PD subjects without depressive symptoms at initial encounter. Among this cohort, incident rate of depressive symptoms (BDI >13) was 13.7 per 100 person-years for PD and 16.6 for aPD subgroups (MSA: 21.9, CBS: 27.1, DLB: 26.5, PSP: 52.8). One-minus survival curves demonstrated statistically significant (<0.001) differences between different subgroups, and a multiple logistic Cox regression showed significantly higher hazard ratios between DLB (HR 4.08, CI 1.19-13.98, p = 0.02) and PSP (HR 3.32, CI 95% 1.28 – 8.56, p = 0.01) when compared to PD.
Conclusions: In Parkinsonian patients without depression at baseline, there is a particularly high subsequent incidence of depression in PSP and DLB patients than those with PD. These findings emphasize the importance of longitudinal screening for depression in Parkinsonian patients even when there are no mood concerns at baseline, particularly as studies in parkinsonism frequently link depression and QoL.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
L. Almeida, B. Ahmed, R. Walz, S. De Jesus, A. Patterson, D. Martinez-Ramirez, D. Vaillancourt, D. Bowers, H. Ward, M.S. Okun, M. Armstrong, N. McFarland. Greater incidence of depressive symptoms in atypical parkinsonism: Importance of early screening [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2016; 31 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/greater-incidence-of-depressive-symptoms-in-atypical-parkinsonism-importance-of-early-screening/. Accessed May 21, 2025.« Back to 2016 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/greater-incidence-of-depressive-symptoms-in-atypical-parkinsonism-importance-of-early-screening/