Parkinson's disease severity and use of dopaminergic medications. Issue 3 (March 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fang, John Y.; Pérez, Adriana; Christine, Chadwick W.; Leehey, Maureen; Aminoff, Michael J.; Boyd, James T.; Morgan, John C.; Dhall, Rohit; Nicholas, Anthony P.; Bodis-Wollner, Ivan; Zweig, Richard M.; Goudreau, John L.
• Is Part Of: Parkinsonism & related disorders. Volume 21:Issue 3(2015)
• Page Start: 297
• Page End: 299
• Publication Date: 2015-03
• Subjects: Parkinson's disease -- Levodopa -- Dopamine agonist -- Clinical trial -- Disability -- Cognition; Parkinson's disease -- Periodicals; Movement disorders -- Periodicals; Movement Disorders -- Periodicals; Nerve Degeneration -- Periodicals; Nervous System Diseases -- Periodicals; Parkinson Disease -- Periodicals; Tremor -- Periodicals; Parkinson, Maladie de -- Périodiques; Parkinson's disease; 616.833
• DOI: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2014.10.016
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1353-8020

Abstract

Abstract: Background: The effects of dopaminergic therapy in parkinson's disease (PD) can vary depending on the class of medication selected. Objective: The aim of this post hoc study was to determine if the class of dopaminergic therapy correlated with disease severity in persons with early, treated PD. Methods: A non-parametric global statistical test (GST) was used to assess the status of participants treated with dopamine agonist (DA) monotherapy, levodopa (LD) monotherapy or combined LD and DA therapy on multiple PD outcomes encompassing motor, cognitive, psychiatric and autonomic function, as well as disability and quality of life. Results: The outcomes measured at the beginning of the study showed lower disease burden for participants on initial DA monotherapy compared to those taking combined LD and DA therapy after controlling for age, education, taking cog-meds and amantadine. Conclusion: This observation suggests that clinicians treating early PD patients favor combined LD and DA therapy in patients with more disabling features over DA monotherapy. As such, studies of PD progression in treated PD patients may be affected by the class of symptomatic dopaminergic therapy. Highlights: This is a post hoc study from the LS1 clinical trial. We examined a set of clinical metrics of more severe Parkinson's disease. Using a global statistic the metrics were correlated with type of dopaminergic therapy. Subjects taking dopamine agonist monotherapy were less severe than their peers. This difference was maintained after adjusting for several covariates.