Short-lasting episodes of prosopagnosia in Parkinson's disease
C Villa-Bonomo1, J Pagonabarraga, S Martínez-Horta
1Movement Disorders Unit, Neurology Department, Sant Pau Hospital, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Institut d'Investigacions Biosanitàries, Sant Pau, and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas, C/Mas Casanovas, 90, Barcelona 08025, Spain.
Background:
Prosopagnosia, the selective inability to recognize known faces, has been described in Alzheimer's disease and fronto-temporal dementia but is not expected to occur in Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods And Results:
We report three PD patients who developed recurrent, paroxysmal and short-lasting episodes of prosopagnosia, before progressing to PD dementia (PDD). Hallucinations and other higher-order visual deficits - such as optic ataxia and micro/macropsia - were also seen.
Conclusion:
Progressive signs of temporal and parietal dysfunction have been suggested to herald dementia in PD. The observation of prosopagnosia and other higher-order visuoperceptive defects in the transition to dementia, reinforce the importance of posterior-cortical deficit in PD.
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