Psychiatric and Cognitive disorder

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:41 am Post subject: Psychiatric and Cognitive disorder in Parkinson's disease

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Dear Doctor,

Cognitive disorders are common in PD - anxiety, depression, etc. With the drastic improvement in the treatment of the movement problem in PD, I often find that the cognitive disorders are actually more difficult to treat than the movement problem.

I have known PD as an illness of the "body, mind and soul".


Kindly elaborate the above.

Thanks

TEOKIMHOE

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Dr. Fernandez



Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Posts: 90

Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2007 8:12 am Post subject:

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I think you meant to ask this to the Ask the Doctor Forum instead of the Ask the Speech Clinician.

I am not sure what you are exactly asking. As we mentioned before, it is best to use the forum for your own patient-specific question or when you do not understand something particular about PD instead of asking us general questions.

Cognitive impairment is seen in PD. The incidence and the prevalence vary a lot depending on the length of observation and the criteria used to diagnose a PD patient with cognitive impairment. But clearly, PD patients have a higher chance of cognitive-impairment compared to their non-PD age-matched controls. But not all PD patients will suffer from significant cognitive impairment.

As far as we can tell, the medications used to enhance memory in Alzheimer's disease also provide a modest improvement in cognition in PD.

Yours.
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Hubert H. Fernandez