Abstract
ObjectiveEmotional experience of people with Parkinson’s disease is prone to being misunderstood by observers and even healthcare practitioners, which affects treatment effectiveness and makes clients suffer distress in their social lives. This study was designed to identify reliable emotional cues from expressive behavior in women and men with Parkinson’s disease.MethodVideotaped expressive behavior of 96 participants during an interview of discussing enjoyable events was rated using the Interpersonal Communication Rating Protocol. Indices from emotional measures were represented in three components. Correlational analyses between expressive behavior domains and emotional components were conducted for the total sample and by gender separately.ResultsMore gross motor expressivity and smiling/laughing indicated more positive affect in the total sample. Less conversational engagement indicated more negative affect in women. However, women with more negative affect and depression appeared to smile and laugh more.ConclusionThis study identified reliable cues from expressive behavior that could be used for assessment of emotional experience in people with Parkinson’s disease. For women, because smiling/laughing may convey two possible meanings, that is, more positive and more negative affect, this cue needs to be interpreted cautiously and be used for detecting the intensity, not the type, of emotional experience. Healthcare practitioners should be sensitive to valid cues to make an accurate evaluation of emotion in people with Parkinson’s disease.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease affects dopamine-generating neurons in the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia and causes movement disorders [1]
This study identified reliable cues from expressive behavior that could be used for assessment of emotional experience in people with Parkinson’s disease
Healthcare practitioners should be sensitive to valid cues to make an accurate evaluation of emotion in people with Parkinson’s disease
Summary
Parkinson’s disease affects dopamine-generating neurons in the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia and causes movement disorders [1]. Abnormalities of emotional expressive behavior have been extensively documented in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Expressive behavior refers to the acts or movements involving channels via the face, body, voice, and speech that communicate a person’s inner emotion, personality, or motives [8,9]. Reduced expressivity misleads lay observers and health practitioners into identifying people with PD as being sad, hostile, or lacking emotion entirely, and into forming a possibly incorrect negative impression of them [14,15,16]. Qualitative studies have indicated that people with PD suffer distress because of being misunderstood and negatively evaluated in every day social life [19,20,21], which emphasizes the need to enable observers to accurately interpret these individuals’ behavior
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