Parkinson's
patients with dementia have up to a three-fold increase in mortality
Research indicates that the presence of dementia in patients with
Parkinson's disease is associated with risk for death independently
of severity of motor disease, according to a presentation at the 2002
Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
"Previous studies had
shown dementia to be associated with reduced survival among Parkinson's
disease patients," said study author Karen Marder, M.D. "However
we were unsure whether reduced survival was due to the fact that
individuals with dementia were also the most severely affected in
terms of the motor signs of Parkinson's disease."
The current study, which involved
evaluation and follow-up of 180 patients, also revealed that patients
who died during the four-year follow-up period were significantly
older and had a higher Parkinson's severity at baseline than those
who were still living. After adjustment for age, gender, education,
and duration of disease, both presence of dementia and severity
of disease were independently associated with increased risk of
death.
The risk of mortality associated
with incident dementia was between two- and three-fold. This risk
was unchanged after adjusting for the development of hallucinations
or depression.
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