Hospital-based study on emergency admission of patients with Parkinson's disease

Abstract Objective Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. As the severity of disease worsens, patients have lower tolerance for treatments and occasionally need to be hospitalized. This study focuses on characteristics of patients with PD who were emergently admitted to our hospital and evaluates their prognosis during hospitalization. Methods Hospital-based study on emergency admission was conducted in a consecutive series of patients with PD between April 2009 and March 2015. Results A total of 164 admissions involving 136 patients with PD with available medical records were identified. Among these, 40 admissions involving 38 patients were emergency admissions. The most common cause of hospitalization was aspiration pneumonia (n=17) followed by parkinsonism hyperpyrexia syndrome (n=6), cerebrovascular disease (n=2), dehydration (n=2), and others (n=13). The mean Hoehn and Yahr stage at admission and discharge were 3.5 and 4.2, respectively, with significant differences between time points (p Conclusion Aspiration pneumonia was the most common reason for emergency admission in patients afflicted with PD for more than five years. Abnormalities seen in videofluoroscopy, PIGD and mixed phenotypes, cognitive impairment, and history of psychiatric symptoms could potentially be predictors for aspiration pneumonia in patients with PD.