Common Symptoms That Precede Diagnosis of Parkinson Disease

Recognizing early Parkinson disease (PD) can be tricky because patients can present with nonspecific signs or symptoms that overlap other common neurological and non-neurological disorders. In this case-control study, researchers focused on functional impairment prior to PD diagnosis, to gain a better understanding of prodromal or unrecognized PD. Using data from a U.S. national health survey, they recorded functional impairment-related symptoms reported by 56 PD patients (median age, 80) during the 3 years before the patients received diagnoses of PD; these cases were compared with several thousand age- and sex-matched control patients without PD.

Patients and controls were compared on 27 neurological signs and functional symptoms for each …