Mild Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Background: To determ ine the frequency of m ild cognitive im pairm ent (M CI) of Parkinson’s disease (PD, PDMCI ) and its subtypes among non-dement ed PD patients, and to identify the influence of the age and presenting sym ptom on the development of PDMCI. Methods: A total 141 non-demented PD patients underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment including attention, language, visuospatial, memory and frontal functions. PDMCI was defined by neuropsychological testing and was classified into five subtypes. Patients were divided into two groups (tremor vs. akinetic-rigid type) for presenting symptom and three groups according to the age. Neuropsychological performance of patients was compared with normative data. Results: Almost half (49.6%) of non-demented PD patients had impairment in at least one domain and can be considered as having PDMCI. Executive type of PDMCI was the most frequent and amnestic, visuospatial, linguistic and attention types followed in the order of frequency. The population of PDMCI was increasing as the age of disease onset was higher. Whereas the frequency of executive and amnestic types of PDMCI was comparable in younger group, executive type was the most frequent in older group. The patients with tremor dominant type performed worse on tests, particularly on attention test. Conclusions: MCI was common even in the early stage of PD and the subtype was diverse. Unlike MCI developing Alzheimer’s disease later, executive type of PDMCI was the most common. Age was an important risk factor for development of MCI in PD. The concept of MCI should be introduced in PD.