Impairment of semantic knowledge in Parkinson disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is commonly characterized by cognitive deterioration, but it is still unclear whether PD is associated with semantic impairments.

To evaluate semantic knowledge of concepts in patients with idiopathic PD, addressing concrete and abstract concepts, conceptual attributes, and conceptual relations.

Twelve patients with preserved cognitive status, 12 patients with mildly deteriorated cognitive status, and 12 control subjects were studied. The cognitive status of patients and controls was determined using detailed cognitive testing. Patients were participants in a university-based movement disorder program, and their PD diagnoses were clinically confirmed during long-term follow-up. The 2 patient groups were similar in age, level of education, disease duration, and parkinsonian disability. Patients were required to produce verbal descriptions of concrete and abstract concepts, to give ratings of the importance of concept attributes, and to assess and construct conceptual hierarchies. The description tasks included guiding questions, which were used if the spontaneous productions of the patients lacked any essentials expected in the answers.

Patients with mild cognitive deterioration performed less well than the other groups in defining concrete and abstract concepts (P<.001 for both). External guidance did not help them markedly improve their performance. They also had difficulties in tasks calling for knowledge of the importance of given attributes to the concepts and in tasks demanding evaluation of hierarchical semantic relations between concepts (P<.001 for both).

Semantic disruption is implied in idiopathic PD in association with incipient cognitive impairment.