Frailty in Parkinson's disease and its association with early dementia: A longitudinal study

Frailty is recognized as a clinical condition associated with increased vulnerability for developing negative health outcomes but has been little studied in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we investigated the risk of frailty in de novo PD patients and its association with subsequent development of dementia.

We conducted a three-year longitudinal population-based study of 192 drug-naive newly diagnosed PD patients and 172 controls (No-PD) matched for age, sex, and education. Frailty was measured using the frailty index (FI). Logistic regression models, adjusting for potential confounders, were conducted to assess the association between frailty at the time of PD diagnosis and the subsequent odds for developing PD dementia during follow-up.

The mean baseline FI score was higher in the PD (0.21 ± 0.10) than in the No-PD group (0.11 ± 0.07, p < 0.001). One-third of PD patients had high-FI (>0,25), compared to 5% in the no-PD group. Participants with PD had an increased risk to present frailty with an odds ratio (OR) of 6.68 (SE 2.70 IC 95% [3.15; 15.62], p-value <0.001) compared to the No-PD group. PD Participants with greater FI measured at baseline had increased odds of having dementia within three years of follow-up, after adjustment for age and sex (OR 2.91 SE 1.00 IC 95% [1.54; 5.99] p-value = 0.002).

Frailty is common in people with newly diagnosed PD and associated with increased odds for subsequent development of dementia in a three-year follow-up. This study emphasizes the prognostic importance of frailty in PD from the earliest clinical stages.