Symptoms of Parkinson Disease a Decade Before Diagnosis

Numerous symptoms identified in the primary care setting were more common in patients later diagnosed with PD.

Parkinson disease (PD) is in general a slowly progressive disease, and some evidence suggests that symptoms can occur years before diagnosis. To examine the prevalence of prediagnostic symptoms, investigators drew data from The Health Improvement Network UK primary care database, which represents approximately 6% of the entire U.K. population. The authors compared symptoms within 2, 5, and 10 years before PD diagnosis in 8166 adult patients with symptoms within the same time periods after randomly assigned dates for 46,755 controls matched to cases for age, sex, and database registration date.

Within 2 years before diagnosis, tremor was the most common symptom in PD patients (41%) versus controls (<1%); most other studied symptoms were more …

Reviewing Author

Michael S. Okun, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardParkinson’s Foundation; Tourette Association of America

Speaker’s BureauMedscape/WebMD CME, Movement Disorders Society CME, American Academy of Neurology CME

RoyaltiesBooks4Patients; Demos; Cambridge; Taylor and Francis; Robert Rose; Public Affairs

Grant/Research SupportNational Institutes of Health; Parkinson’s Foundation; Tourette Association of America; University of Florida Foundation

Editorial BoardsTremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements; JAMA Neurology

Leadership Positions in Professional SocietiesParkinson’s Foundation (Medical Advisor)