Perceived and performance-based executive dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease

Executive dysfunction is common in early stage Parkinson’s disease (PD). We evaluated the relationship between self- and informant-report measurement of real-world executive functions as well as performance-based neuropsychological measures in mildly cognitively impaired individuals with PD and healthy controls. The PD group reported more difficulty with initiation of complex tasks compared to caregiver ratings, and processing speed was a strong predictor of self-reported executive dysfunction for the PD group, followed by depression. Processing speed and semantic verbal fluency predicted informant-reported executive dysfunction in PD. These findings highlight the contribution of speeded processing for performance of everyday executive tasks in PD.