Objective: To evaluate a variety of cognitive assessment scales in a longitudinal Parkinson’s disease (PD) cohort.

Background: Cognitive impairment is one of the most common and detrimental non-motor symptoms of PD, which could be measured by various cognitive assessment scales. However, there is no clear evidences about which cognitive assessment scale is the optimal for cognitive assessment in PD.

Method: We acquired clinical data of 306 patients with PD and 99 healthy controls (HC) from baseline to five-year follow-up in Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI). Cognitive function of each subject has been measured annually by Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Benton Judgement of Line Orientation (JLO), Modified Semantic Fluency Test (SF), and Letter Number Sequencing Test (LNS) from baseline to year 5. SPSS-ANOVA was used to compare cognitive function between PD and control at baseline, and ANOVA repeated measures were used to assess different cognitive scales at different follow-up points over time in PD. We also tested the correlations of cognitive changes over five years of PD patients with their motor deterioration using logistic regression.

Results: SDMT and MoCA scores in patients with PD were significantly lower than those in HC (p<0.001), while there were no significant differences between PD and HC in LNS, SF, and JLO scores at the baseline. Repetitive ANOVA analysis showed scores of SDMT, LNS, and JLO were significantly declined over five years (p<0.001). SDMT scores showed steady decrease, while other four scales were unstable with fluctuation over five years follow-up. LNS scores showed a stairway like decline with plateaus at year one to year two and year three to year four. JLO scores had significant changes at year one, three, and five. MoCA scores decreased significantly at the first-year follow-up and remained steady thereafter. SF scores were relatively stable in the first three years, and then decreased dramatically in the last two years. In addition, only SDMT significantly correlated with the rapidity of motor function deterioration after multiple corrections (p<0.010).

Conclusion: SDMT is the most optimal cognitive scale to assess cognitive performance in PD and it shows better cognitive function tracking capacities over other cognitive assessment scales, including MoCA, JLO, LNS, and SF.

« Back to 2023 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/evaluation-of-cognitive-assessment-tools-in-parkinsons-disease/