Frontal dysfunction contributes to the genesis of hallucinations in non-demented Parkinsonian patients
✍ Scribed by Dario Grossi; Luigi Trojano; Maria Teresa Pellecchia; Marianna Amboni; Nina Antonetta Fragassi; Paolo Barone
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 68 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
- DOI
- 10.1002/gps.1339
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Background Hallucinations occur in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with reported prevalence ranging from 8% to 40%. Hallucinations are significantly associated with dementia in PD, but little is known about possible distinctive cognitive features of non-demented PD patients who develop hallucinations.
Objective The aim of the study was to assess selected cognitive abilities in non-demented PD patients with and without hallucinations in order to identify specific neuropsychological correlates of such phenomena. Methods Forty-eight consecutive patients with PD and Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) ! 23 were examined for the presence of hallucinations and assessed on standardized neuropsychological tasks for semantic and phonological fluency, verbal learning and logical abstract thinking; disease severity was staged according to Hoehn and Yahr scale. Results Fourteen (29.2%) of 48 patients experienced hallucinations. There was no difference between hallucinators and non-hallucinators on demographic variables, disease severity and dose of any pharmacological treatment. Disease duration was significantly longer in hallucinator vs non-hallucinator patients ( p ¼ 0.02). Patients with hallucinations scored significantly lower than patients without hallucinations only on verbal learning-immediate recall task ( p ¼ 0.0324), and semantic and phonological fluency tasks ( p ¼ 0.0005 and p ¼ 0.0036, respectively). Conclusions Our results suggest that PD patients with hallucinations show reduced performance on tasks that explore executive functioning as compared with non-hallucinators. Therefore, executive dysfunction may be considered as a risk factor for the development of hallucinations in non-demented PD patients.