BACKGROUND Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been associated with mood sequelae in a subset of patients operated on in either the subthalamic nucleus or the globus pallidus internus for the treatment of Parkinson disease. OBJECTIVE To compare mood and motor outcomes in those with and without a presurgical history of depression. METHODS Unilateral subthalamic nucleus or unilateral globus pall...

OBJECTIVES Nicotine therapy might improve the course of Parkinson's disease. This observational study evaluated the performance of dopamine transporter imaging in follow-up patients under nicotine therapy. METHODS Six Hoehn and Yahr stage III patients underwent 123I-FP-CIT imaging prior to, 3 months, and 1 year after the onset of nicotine therapy. Nicotine was administered transdermally with ...

Methods This pilot study is being conducted in two centers with a randomized, controlled study design using blinded and validated rater assessments and a sham procedure. The primary outcome variable is hand tremor and the Unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale in the medicated state at three months. Comprehensive cognitive assessments before and after the procedure are being conducted for add...

BACKGROUND Postural instability (PI) is a disabling sign of Parkinson's disease (PD) not easily amenable to treatment with medication. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of balance training on PI in patients with PD. METHODS A total of 64 patients with PI were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 33) for balance training or to the control group (n = 31) for general physical exerc...

BACKGROUND There are few established predictors of the clinical course of PD. Prognostic markers would be useful for clinical care and research. OBJECTIVE To identify predictors of long-term motor and cognitive outcomes and rate of progression in PD. METHODS Newly diagnosed PD participants were followed for 7 years in a prospective study, conducted at 55 centers in the United States and Can...

The caregiver-care receiver relationship (mutuality) in Parkinson's disease (PD) and its association with motor and non-motors symptoms, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and caregiver burden have not fully been investigated. The aim of our study was to explore if (1) the level of mutuality perceived by PD-patients and PD-partners differs, (2) different factors are associated with perceiv...

The optimum method for evaluating disease progression in Parkinson's disease (PD) has not been established, and this has implications for clinical trials. The majority of previous studies have utilized change on the Unified Parkinson's disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) as an index of progression. However, the UPDRS has not been validated for this purpose. We utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA...

OBJECTIVE Little is known about apathy in the early stages of Parkinson's disease (PD). We determined the clinical correlates of apathy in a large representative sample of patients recently diagnosed with PD (ANIMO study). METHODS PD patients, diagnosed within 2 years of inclusion, were recruited in 102 outpatient clinics situated in 82 populations throughout Spain. Apathy was quantified usin...

* Asterisk denotes corresponding author. Affiliations: 1 Systems Analysis, Modelling and Prediction (SAMP), Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 2 Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (OCIAM), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 3 Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA 4 Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Uni...

OBJECTIVE To quantify more reliably the benefits and risks of monoamine oxidase type B inhibitors (MAOBIs) in early Parkinson's disease. DATA SOURCES Searches of the Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science for years 1966-2003, plus major journals in the field, abstract books, and proceedings of meetings, for randomised trials comparing MAOBIs with placebo or levodopa. ...