Predictors of cognitive decline in the early stages of parkinson's disease: A brief cognitive assessment longitudinal study

Our objectives were to perform a longitudinal assessment of mental status in early stage parkinson's disease (pd) patients,with brief neuropsychological tests,in order to find predictive factors for cognitive decline. sixty-one,early stage,and nondemented patients were assessed twice,over a 2-year interval,with a global cognitive test (mini-mental state examination (mmse)) and a frontal function test (frontal assessment battery (fab)) and motor function scales. dementia and hallucinations were diagnosed according to the dsm-iv criteria. cognitive function scores did not decrease significantly,except for fab lexical fluency score. four patients presented with dementia at followup. the mmse score below cut-off,worse gait dysfunction,the nontremor motor subtype,and hallucinations were significantly related to dementia. rigidity and speech dysfunction were related to dementia and a decrease in fab scores. we can conclude that decline in the mmse and fab scores is small and heterogeneous in the early stages of pd. scores below cut-off in the mmse could be helpful to predict dementia. nontremor motor deficits could be predictive factors for frontal cognitive decline and dementia. © 2013 paulo bugalho and miguel viana-baptista.