Objective: To know the prevalence and clinical characteristics of young onset Parkinson’s Disease among Nepalese Population

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease which causes disabling slowness of movements, walking problems and non-motor symptoms as well. Early onset of disease causes further disability in terms of both motor and non-motor symptoms. There is no previous published studies reported on PD in Nepal.

Method: We included all the patients who were admitted to inpatient ward or presented to outpatient clinic of Neurology department of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, with the diagnosis of PD meeting MDS clinical diagnostic criteria from 2022 January to 2022 December with age of onset of motor symptoms of less than 50 years.

Results: A total of 33 young onset patients (35.8%) out of total 92 PD patients evaluated has mean age of 48.1±9.36, mean age of onset 42.3±9.06 and diagnosed at the mean age of 44.3±8.7 years. Youngest patient in our study was 25 years old, diagnosed at the age of 23. Male patients were predominant (60% vs 40%) and no consanguinity was reported in our study. Only 1 family had been found to have familial PD: 3 PD patients in their family, 2 of them were included in our study; and rest 1 patient is living in abroad. Eight patients had Levodopa induced dyskinesia ( 24.2%) and postural instability in 45.5%, were the frequent motor features. Regarding non-motor symptoms, constipation (66.7%), urinary symptoms (45.5%), and Limbs or Body Pain (33.3%) were the commonest. Majority of our patients were grouped under stage 2 (57.6%) and stage 3 (36.4%) of Hoehn and Yahr scale. None of our patients had undergone surgical interventions such as deep brain stimulation or lesioning.

Conclusion: There is higher prevalence of young onset PD in Nepal, and late diagnosis is frequent. Non-motor symptoms are frequent in young PD patients, equally debilitating and should not be neglected. Further studies of longer duration with large samples might shed light on to give more clear picture.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/prevalence-and-clinical-characteristics-of-young-onset-parkinsons-disease-among-nepalese-population/