Objective: The aim of this study was to quantitively compare how PD patients perceive tremor and dyskinesia.

Background: Hyperkinetic movements, such as dyskinesia and tremor, are often under-reported by people with Parkinson disease (PD) [1]. The present study examines whether video delay can mitigate perceptual errors in both tremor and drug-induced dyskinesia among these patients.

Method: We examined the self-reported severity ratings of tremor and dyskinesia among 56 non-demented patients with PD, comparing their self-ratings (SR) to ratings obtained after viewing their reflections in a full-body mirror (MR) and watching video recordings of themselves (VR). Patients rated face, arm, trunk, and leg dyskinesias and tremors individually.

Results: Of the 56 participants, 40% were female, mean age was 71.02. All patients were non-demented with a mean MMSE score of 28.54.  Apart from arm ratings, all individual body regions correlated towards increasing severity from SR to MR to VR.

Conclusion: The findings of our study corroborate the existence of a discrepancy in the severity ratings of both tremor and dyskinesia among individuals with PD across various rating methods. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear and requires further investigation.

References: [1] Pietracupa, S., Latorre, A., Berardelli, A., & Fabbrini, G. (2014). Parkinsonian patients and poor awareness of dyskinesias. Frontiers in neurology, 5, 32.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/parkinson-disease-patients-awareness-of-hyperkinetic-movements/