Cognition in a patient with very mild right-sided hemiparkinsonism.

Full Abstract

Non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), especially if they are high functioning and early in the course of their disease, usually exhibit mild deficits in anterograde recall memory for verbal and non-verbal material, visuospatial reasoning, visuomotor construction, temporal ordering and sequencing. Impairments in problem solving and verbal fluency tests may also occur. PD patients with predominantly right-sided symptoms usually exhibit more severe difficulties with verbal than with non-verbal tasks. We report a case of a highly educated right-handed man with very mild right-sided hemiparkinsonism who never received anti-Parkinsonian or other psychoactive medication. Our patient showed anterograde and retrograde amnesia for faces and spatial locations and difficulties on complex visuospatial tasks that required manual responses, but normal to above average performance on all other cognitive tests. The specific pattern of cognitive loss early in PD may depend on which spatial, facial or verbal pre-frontal striatal circuits are deprived of their dopaminergic inputs.

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Author information

Author/s: Beatty, William W (WW);

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Post Office Box 26901, Oklahoma City, OK 73190, USA. william-beatty(-atsign-)ouhsc.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Case Reports; Journal Article

Journal: Neurocase : case studies in neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and behavioural neurology (Neurocase), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-; vol 8 (issue 1-2) : pp 28-39

Dates: Created 2002/05/08; Completed 2002/07/03; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 11997483, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Aged
Cognition Disorders - etiology; psychology
Dichotic Listening Tests
Functional Laterality - physiology
Humans
Male
Memory - physiology
Memory, Short-Term - physiology

Motor Skills
Neuropsychological Tests
Parkinson Disease - complications; psychology
Problem Solving - physiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Verbal Behavior - physiology
Visual Fields
Visual Perception - physiology

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