Abstract
We investigated the influence of age on the occurrence of cognitive disturbances in Parkinson's disease (PD), by evaluating neuropsychological performances in early- and late-onset groupe of patients (<45 and >65 years, respectively), individually paired for all the variables of parkinsonism and compared with age-matched controls. Cognitive disorders were limited in the early-onset PD group compared with their age-matched controls. Conversely, we found global cognitive changes, including marked frontal lobe dysfunction, in the late-onset group. This specific cognitive impairment in older patients related to a significant interaction between the aging and disease processes. Late onset seemed to compound the subtle cognitive changes associated with the disease for which the early-onset group compensated. This compounding effect of aging may explain, at least partially, the high frequency of dementia in older PD patients.
- © 1990 by the American Academy of Neurology
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