Depression in patients with parkinson’s disease

الملخص EN

A high rate of depression has been observed in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).

PD involves a loss of central monoamines, and a decrease of monoamines has been implicated in depression; therefore, it is possible that depression in PD results from the loss of endogenous neurotransmitters, however, it is equally possible that depression represents a reaction to the chronic disabling course of PD.

Fifty-four patients with definite PD (according to Caine research criteria for diagnosing PD) were selected from attendants of out-patient clinics of Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Hammad Shehab Hospital during the period from !sl November 1999 till 30th-June 2000.

The presence of depression was diagnosed by using a semi-structured interview based on "ICD-IO" criteria and its severity was rated by Beck Depression Inventory (Concise Arabic Version) while the motor disability of PD was determined according to Hoehn and Yahr scale.

The patients group was matched for age and sex with (52) healthy control to achieve the comparability.

The results show ed that the rate of depression in patients with PD was (42.59%) which is highly significant compared with (7.69%) among their matched control (i.e.

P< 0.001) and there is a positive correlation between the severity of depression and severity of motor disability (i.e., P < 0.05).

47% of depressed parkinsonian patients were in the age group (50-59), and the rate of depression was nearly equal between males and females (i.e., statistically not significant, P < 0.05).

We concluded that, depression is common in parkinsonian patients and its relation to the motor disability is supported by this study