Non‑motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease and their clinical correlates: A prevalence study in Tertiary Care Center in Turkey

Abstract

Abstract Objective We aimed to investigate the involvement of non-motor symptoms (NMSs) in our consecutive Parkinson’s disease (PD) cohort systematically and reveal the possible clinical correlates. Methods We enrolled all consecutive PD subjects who applied to our movement disorders outpatient clinics between January/2023 and December/2023; and accepted to participate in the study. In addition to the evaluation of the demographic and clinical features, clinical scales, including the MDS-UPDRS, NMSS, and FOOGQ were performed. Results Overall, we enrolled 163 PD subjects with a mean age of 63.9 ± 10.4 (F/M = 27/136). The disease duration was 3.5 (20) y [median (range)]. The median score of the NMSS was 41 points. The NMSs burden levels were severe in 25.2%, and very severe in 25.2% of the subjects. The subitems with the highest scores were sleep/fatigue, mood/cognition, urinary, and miscellaneous. The correlation analyses between the clinical scales and the NMSS scores revealed positive correlations between the NMSS scores and the results of all the clinical scales including the MDS-UPDRS 1,2, 3, 4, and FOGQ. The analyses within the patient group with newly diagnosed PD also revealed also high NMSS scores. Conclusion We reported the first data regarding the NMS burden in PD subjects from Turkey. We found a high prevalence and severity of various domains of NMSs, most being sleep/fatigue, mood/cognition, urinary, and miscellaneous. More than half of the patients had an NMS burden of severe to very severe level. We found that NMSs were prevalent even in the subgroup with newly diagnosed patients.