Objective: This study aims to identify differences of constipation symptoms in detail by using the constipation scoring system between PD patients and non-PD patients.

Background: Constipation is the non-motor symptom that prevalent in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. It usually disturbs the quality of life and also has drawbacks on gut absorption. There is still no active therapy to solve this problem. Laxatives are just symptomatic support.

Method: This cross-sectional study included PD patients with constipation from the neurology clinic and non-PD patients with constipation from the gastrointestinal clinic. The baseline characteristics included levodopa equivalent dose (LED) and Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) staging for PD patients, evaluation of the constipation scoring system, and knowledge of useful vegetables for constipation were obtained by either direct or telephone interviews. The statistical analysis was the Chi-square test

Results: One hundred and seventeen volunteers, 67 (57.27%) in the PD group, and 50 (42.73%) in the non-PD group were included. The mean age of the PD and the non-PD group is 71.38±10.88 and 65.10±15.64 years, orderly (p<0.05).  The mean duration of PD is 6.62±3.70 years. PD patients are in H&Y stage 2 at 74.6%, followed by stages 3, 1, 4, and 5 at 17.9%, 3.0%, 3.0%, and 1.5%, respectively. The mean LED is 861.97±384.33 mg/day. There was no statistical significance of gender, laxative use, combined laxative use, digit or maneuver assist, coffee drinking, smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, and amount of water intake between two groups. The non-PD group had other gastrointestinal conditions more than the PD group (p<0.05), but some of patients in the PD group were documented dementia (p<0.01). Hyperlipidemia was common in the PD group (p<0.05). The analysis of characters of constipation revealed that PD patients have a longer duration of constipation than non-PD patients (p<0.001). In contrast, the frequency of bowel movement, painful evacuation effort, incompleteness, abdominal pain, minutes in lavatory per attempt, assistance, and failure for evacuation show no statistical significance. The laxative effect of zucchini, bitter gourd, bitter cucumber, and climbing wattle, was well known in non-PD patients (p<0.05).

Conclusion: PD patients with constipation had a history of longer duration of constipation than non-PD patients with constipation.

« Back to 2022 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-comparison-of-constipation-scoring-system-scales-between-parkinsons-disease-and-non-parkinsons-disease-patients-with-constipation/