Cognitive decline tracks motor progression and not disease duration in Parkinson patients

We performed an analysis of prospectively-acquired cross sectional data on 106 Parkinson disease (PD) patients who underwent comprehensive neuropsychological testing and the Unifi ed Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) motor scale. A signifi cant correlation between the UPDRS motor and neuropsychological tests in all cognitive domains except for general intelligence and visuo-spatial function was seen. In this study, cognitive decline within this PD cohort correlated with motor impairment but not disease duration. Our fi ndings suggest that overall cognitive impairment (except visuospatial dysfunction) may track motor progression in PD more than duration of disease. Longitudinal studies are needed to confi rm our results.