Clinical Assessment Of Non Motor Symptoms In Parkinson’s Disease

Introduction: Parkinson’s Disease is an age related extra pyramidal neurological manifestation resulting in motor impairment. The scope of non motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease has been explored in depth in recent times. Several symptoms including sleep disorders, anxiety, olfactory dysfunction, visual impairment etc are often ignored. This study aims to evaluate the magnitude of non motor symptoms among the patients with Parkinson’s disease. Methodology: This hospital based study was carried out among 150 patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease visiting the tertiary care center. The patients were grouped as treated and drug naïve. All the patients were evaluated for cognitive functions, sleep, olfactory, visual, anxiety, etc using appropriate scales. Independent samples t test and ANOVA was used to analyze the statistical significance between the variables using SPSS ver 16 software. Results: Out of 150 total PD patients, 115 (76.7%) were males and 35 (23.3%) were females. The majority of the patients belonged to age group 61-70 years (n=69, 46%). The majority of the PD patients had duration of illness between 1 - 5years (n=97, 64.7%). The mean MDS-UPDRS scores (Part 1, 2, 3) were significantly lower in drug-naïve as compared to treated PD patients Conclusion: This study has thrown light on the magnitude of the non motor symptoms among patients with Parkinson’s disease. This study has also effectively helped in sub typing the non motor symptoms.