Health-related quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease: Implications for falling

It has been demonstrated that various domains of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) have predictive value in progression of disability and depression in a neurological setting. The aim of this study was to assess potential predictive value of domains of HRQoL in occurrence of falls among persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) over one year of follow-up.

The study comprised cross-sectional design at baseline and 1-year prospective cohort study. Those who denied having fallen in the past 6 months were followed for one year, while participants were asked to record falls prospectively in a falls diary for a year. A total of 300 consecutive PD outpatients without cognitive impairment were recruited from August 15, 2011 to December 15, 2012 in the outpatient Department of Movement Disorders, Institute of Neurology, Clinical Center of Serbia in Belgrade. The HRQoL was evaluated using the SF-36 questionnaire.

All domains of the SF-36, except Role Emotional, were significantly lower among fallers. After controlling for potential confounding factors, the domain of Role Physical (p = 0.027), Physical Composite Score (p = 0.023) and the total SF-36 score (p = 0.029) were significant predictors of occurrence of falls within one year of follow-up.

Assessment of quality of life represents an additional tool to the established measures of clinical course of the disease and could provide further insight in complex distinction of risk factors for falling in PD.