Investigation of the incidences of non-motor symptoms in siblings and spouses of patients with Parkinson's disease / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective Non-motor symptoms are important prodromal characteristics of Parkinson's disease (PD).The siblings and the spouses of PD patients do not have classic motor symptoms.This study aimed to investigate if they have PD prodromal symptoms.Methods A total of 98 PD patients from the Affiliated Hospital of Yangzhou University were recruited between January 2015 and August 2017;256 siblings of these patients were included in a siblings group,87 spouses of PD patients were included in a spouses group and 250 healthy individuals were included in a control group.Various scales were used to assess non-motor symptoms,including depression,anxiety,cognitive function,sleep status,constipation,daytime sleepiness,subjective olfactory disorder,rapid-eye-movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD),and restless legs syndrome (RLS).Results The incidence of anxiety (OR=3.06,95％CI 1.86-5.05,P＜0.01),depression (OR=2.16,95％CI 1.16-4.04,P=0.01),RBD (OR=3.83,95％CI 1.79-8.19,P＜0.01) and subjective olfactory disorder (OR=4.48,95％CI 2.02-9.90,P＜0.01) was higher in the siblings group than the control group.There were not statistically significant differences in constipation,cognitive impairment,sleep disorder,daytime sleepiness,and RLS between the two groups.There were not statistically significant differences in non-motor symptoms between the spouses group and the control group,except that the mild depression (OR=2.58,95％CI 1.07-6.20,P =0.03) in the spouses group was more obvious.Conclusions The siblings of PD patients are more likely to have PD prodromal symptoms compared with those without PD family history,perhaps because PD patients and their siblings have common pathogenic genetic factors and early living environment for neurodegeneration.There are no obvious non-motor symptoms in the spouses of PD patients.It can be concluded that the onset of PD is not related to the family life environment in adulthood.