Objective: To highlight the frequency of non motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease and to evaluate their impact on quality of life.

Background: Parkinson’s disease is considered by most physicians as mainly a motor problem, this fact is more and more challenged by recent data revealing it to be a multisystem affection with non motor signs (NMS) as a core element. More over some of these non motor features are felt by patients months or years before the motor signs. These non-motor symptoms are detrimental to the quality of life of Parkinson’s disease patients.

Methods: In a prospective, one-year study (January 2015 to December 2015), 65 Parkinson’s disease patients were followed in a specialized consultation. We applied the non motor symptom scale (NMSS) alongside the UPDRS motor part to evaluate the prevalence and severity of different NMS and the PDQ-39 to evaluate the quality of life. The differences in quality of life scores between patients with and without non-motor symptoms in each NMSS domain were also evaluated.

Results: In our study of 65 patients where 35 were men, up to 84% of patients had at least one symptom of NMS. Premotor symptoms were present in 45% of patients, dominated by depression and constipation. Depression (78.4% of cases), insomnia (65.3%), fatigue (62.9%), and nocturia (62.7%), were the most frequent complaints reported by patients throughout the course of their disease. For the majority of our patients we found mood disturbances to be the first signs to appear, while cognitif one were the last to be felt, the autonomic signs appearing usually between the two subtypes of symptoms. The non motor signs were associated with an impact on the quality of life in all patients, with the highest scores in patients with depression and fatigue. We also found that patients with NMS had relatively worse scores in their quality of life compared with patients who do not report them.

Conclusions: Our study adds to the existing data in the literature precious information about the prevalence and impact of the NMS in Parkinson’s disease. This fact should encourage our physicians to give more importance to the NMS, diagnose them and adequately treat them given that they are more incriminated in the worsening of the quality of life. Treatment may include interventions independent of traditional, dopaminergic anti-Parkinson therapy.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/non-motor-symptoms-of-parkinsons-disease-prevalence-and-impact-on-quality-of-life/