Objective: The purpose of this project was to examine cognitive deficits in a patient sample fulfilling the diagnostic criteria for idiopathic non-demented Parkinson’s disease (PD) participants and healthy controls (HC).

Background: Two different groups of cognitive performance are currently described in PD: A) anterior type neuropsychological deficit (A-NPS-D), characterized by impaired executive functions, and B) posterior type neuropsychological deficit (P-NPS-D), as an expression of temporal lobe dysfunction. The A-NPS-D is frequent and more prevalent in PD, but the P-NPS-D is more predictive and could be a marker of dementia.

Methods: We evaluated 53 subjects, 25 non demented PD patients and 28 age matched HC. MDS-UPDRS and Hoehn & Yahr scales were performed by an experienced neurologist. A neuropsychologist assessed cognitive performance of PD and HC participants. The Mini Mental State Examination was above 24 in all subjects. Median Hoehn & Yahr staging for PD participants was 2 and the average duration of PD was 7.1 years. Cognitive assessment items for each group were as follows: A) A-NPS-D: working memory (WM), phonemic fluency (PF), alternating fluency (AF), action fluency (ACF) and sustained attention (SAT), and B) P-NPS-D: picture naming (PN), semantic fluency (SF) and clock drawing test (CD). Statistics analyses were based on ANOVA and Multidimensional Scaling (MDiS).

Results: PD participants performed more poorly than HC across different cognitive measures: MMSE (p< 0,001); PF (p< 0,001); AF (p< 0,001); ACF (p< 0.001); SAT (p<0.001); PN (p<0.003); SF (p< 0.001); CD (p<0.023). The MDiS in PD group indicates two dimensions (Stress < 0.00001). In Dimension 1 the proximity between PF, AF, and SF tasks suggest a profile. PN and CD tasks show proximity by Dimension 2 MDiS. We propose Dimension 1 tasks suggest the A-NPS-D and the tasks belonging to Dimension 2 the P-NPS-D.

Conclusions: A-NPS-D and P-NPS-D seem to be two different patterns that PD patients might show when cognitive skills are analyzed. Further analysis in a cohort study, may allow us to know whether lower scores in tasks of P-NPS-D might eventually be an indicator of progression to dementia.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cognitive-deficits-in-parkinsons-disease-a-preliminary-study-of-neuropsychological-profiles/