The Rising Prevalence and Behavioral Implications of Dementia in Parkinson Disease: Nahid Mohammadzadeh, MD

WATCH TIME: 5 minutes

"The important thing to keep in mind is when managing these patients is to be careful in being accurate with medication increases because these patients are susceptible to develop hallucinations and other behavioral problems. Sometimes these problems can be much worse for the family members and the patient than other dysfunctions.”

Executive dysfunction and other mild cognitive changes are symptoms often experienced in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), and have been identified as a potential sign of transition between normal cognition and the development of dementia. In recent research, approximately 30% of patients with PD were shown to develop dementia and its cognitive correlates have been studied progressively as a risk factor for the condition.¹ Based on the growing amount of research in this area, the evidence has renewed the previous understandings of the association between PD and dementia.

Nahid Mohammadzadeh, MD, a graduate research assistant at Brown University, gave a talk titled “Autopsy-Approved Parkinson’s Disease with Rapidly Progressive Dementia and Cognitive Fluctuations” at the 2nd Annual Advanced Therapeutics in Movement and Related Disorders (ATMRD) Congress, held by the PMD Alliance from June 8 to 11, 2023, in Washington, DC.² In her talk, she discussed the recent research on the prevalence of patients with PD who develop dementia, the behavioral implications, and the impact of treatment decisions on patients' cognitive function.

Mohammadzadeh sat down in an interview with NeurologyLive® to describe the current understanding of PD with dementia. She also discussed the main challenges for these patients to receive effective care. In addition, she shared her thoughts of what the community of neurologists and movement specialists should keep in mind when managing these patients, additionally detailing how she would describe the pipeline of treatment for cognitive issues in PD.

Click here for more coverage of ATMRD 2023.

REFERENCES
1. Wallace ER, Segerstrom SC, van Horne CG, Schmitt FA, Koehl LM. Meta-Analysis of Cognition in Parkinson's Disease Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Progression. Neuropsychol Rev. 2022;32(1):149-160. doi:10.1007/s11065-021-09502-7
2. Mohammadzadeh N. Autopsy-Approved Parkinson’s Disease with Rapidly Progressive Dementia and Cognitive Fluctuations. Presented at: ATMRD; June 9-11, 2023; Washington, DC.