Cognitive characteristics in Chinese non-demented PD patients based on gender difference

Cognitive impairment is one of the non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). In the present study, we aim to examine the cognitive function of non-demented Parkinson's disease patients and compare the results between male and female patients as well as control groups in search of any gender effect.

Sixty PD Patients (30 males and 30 females) from the Movement Disorders Clinic at Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University were recruited to participate in the study. One hundred age and gender matched control subjects without neurological or psychiatric disorders were voluntarily recruited. The participants were administered measures of cognition in five domains including memory, language, spatial processing abilities, attention and executive function.

PD patients attained significantly lower scores in the visual spatial function, language and attention/executive function compared with the control group. Anti-parkinsonian treated patients performed worse in Rey-copy score, Clock Drawing Test (CDT) and Verbal Fluency-City than untreated ones. In regard to gender differences, though no general cognitive differences were found in Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE), men surpassed women on Boston naming test (BNT) while women were superior on Auditory Verbal Learning Test-long (AVLT) delayed cued recall test.

Cognitive impairments were common in PD patients even in the absence of dementia. PD patients with anti-parkinsonian medication had worse cognitive impairment than untreated patients. Genders may have different manifestations of cognitive impairment in PD patients.