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Updated: Jun 2, 2026

Tilt Testing with Combined Lower Body Negative Pressure: a "Gold Standard" for Measuring Orthostatic Tolerance
Published on: March 21, 2013
Prevalence of orthostatic hypotension in Parkinson's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Daan C Velseboer1, Rob J de Haan, Wouter Wieling
1Department of Neurology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Background:
Although orthostatic hypotension (OH) is recognized as one of the main non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), there is inconsistent evidence about the prevalence of OH in PD. To estimate the prevalence of OH in PD more precisely we conducted a systematic review of the literature.
Methods:
From PubMed and Embase searches with predefined inclusion criteria, we identified studies published up till December 2009. Prevalence numbers from studies were pooled using a non-linear random-effects meta-analysis.
Results:
We found 25 studies from which the prevalence of OH could be calculated. The pooled estimate of the point prevalence of OH in PD was 30.1% (95% CI: 22.9% to 38.4%). We found a large statistical heterogeneity between studies which could not be reduced by several subgroup analyses.
Conclusions:
The estimated prevalence of OH in PD is 30%. However, due to the large heterogeneity between studies this pooled estimate should be interpreted with caution. More data from unselected population-based cohorts are needed.
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