Mild Cognitive Impairment changes Natural Reading in Parkinson’s Disease (P2.8-028)

Objective: To our knowledge, this is the first study characterizing eye movements during natural reading in correlation to cognitive status in PD. Background: Visual symptoms are frequent in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD). They occur across all disease stages and might have an impact on daily activities such as reading. From an eye movement perspective, reading consists of serial fixations as well as forwards and regressive saccades. Since saccades are known to be hypometric and tend to show a prolonged latency in PD patients, these factors may contribute to reading performance. Design/Methods: For this halftime preliminary analysis of a larger trial, eye movements of 46 PD patients in ON medication state (14 treated with DBS, DBS OFF) were recorded during mute reading of one of the International Reading Speed Texts (IReST). Motor and cognitive functions were assessed with UPRDS and comprehensive neuropsychological testing. Mild Cognitive Impairment (PD-MCI) was diagnosed according to the MDS-task force criteria level 2. Results: 16 patients were diagnosed with PD-MCI (mean age 65.4, disease duration 8.8, Years of education (YoE) 13.7, UPDRSIII 30.6), 30 were cognitively normal (mean age 63.1, disease duration 8.5, YoE 13.6, UPDRSIII 26.3). PD-MCI patients read less words per minute (171.9 vs. 227.1, p Conclusions: This study shows a correlation between MCI and certain characteristics of impaired eye movements while reading in PD. Cognitive, rather than motor impairment may be the crucial factor for reading performance in PD. Disclosure: Dr. Waldthaler has nothing to disclose. Dr. Stock has nothing to disclose. Dr. Kruger-Zechlin has nothing to disclose. Dr. Timmermann has nothing to disclose.