Individual and joint prevalence of three nonmotor symptoms of PD in the US general population

Important for groups like us who are looking combination of early features...

Mov Disord. 2014 Jul 1. doi: 10.1002/mds.25950. [Epub ahead of print]

Chen H, Huang X, Guo X, Peddada S.

BACKGROUND:

Some nonmotor symptoms may precede the clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) by years.

METHODS:

We examined the individual and joint prevalence of depression, daytime sleepiness, and infrequent bowel movement among 10,477 participants of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2005-2008.

RESULTS:

For all symptoms, the prevalence was higher in women than in men. Importantly, few participants had two or more symptoms: 1.3% at ages 20 to 29, 1.0% at 30 to 39, 1.2% at 40 to 49, 3.5% at 50 to 59, 1.7% at 60 to 69, 1.1% at 70 to 79, and 1.2% at ages 80 years or older in men; the corresponding prevalence in women was 3.1%, 5.2%, 5.7%, 4.1%, 3.1%, 2.3%, and 1.2%, respectively. In both men and women, depression was correlated with infrequent bowel movement and daytime sleepiness, but the latter two were mutually independent.

CONCLUSION:

The presence of multiple nonmotor symptoms was uncommon in the general population and the prevalence was higher in women than in men.