Do non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease differ from essential tremor before initial diagnosis? A clinical and scintigraphic study

Patient-Reported Needs, Non-Motor Symptoms, and Quality of Life in Essential Tremor and Parkinson’s Disease

“…NMS were more highly reported among individuals with PD than those with ET, which is consistent with one recent study examining the differences in NMS reporting of those with PD and ET at 1 year post diagnosis 11. While greater NMS predicted worse health-related QOL, this was especially true for those with ET.…”

“…Furthermore, in PD, over 90% of patients endorse NMS across all stages of the disorder,9 and often require additional health care services to manage their disorders and improve their QOL. Research focused on NMS among individuals with ET is just emerging, but recent studies suggest some important differences between those with PD and those with ET in the frequency and type of NMS reported 10,11…”

Essential pitfalls in “essential” tremor

“…For instance, some non-motor features have been recently suggested to represent “core non-motor symptoms” of ET: hyposmia, 28 hearing impairment, 29 cognitive impairment, 30 and depression. 31 Impairments in verbal fluency, naming, mental set-shifting, verbal memory, and working memory compared to a normative sample were reported in 18 ET surgical candidates, in a pattern similar to PD (not adjusting for depression, other comorbidities, or medication exposure).…”

Change in Non-Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor Patients: A One-year Follow-up Study

“…The PD and ET patients included in this study were described in our recently published paper, which notes the inclusion and exclusion criteria 10. The participants were selected from individuals visiting the Operative Unit for Nuclear Medicine of the General Hospital of Barletta, and who had received [ 123 I] β -CIT (2 β -carbomethoxy-3 β -[4-iodophenyl]tropane) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) for diagnostic purposes over a 6-month period (from March 2012 to September 2012).…”

“…ET is associated with relevant NMS, such as frontal dysfunction, dementia, anxiety, depression, poor sleep quality, and subjective reduction of hearing 9. We previously demonstrated that, with respect to their NMS, PD and ET patients are suggestible,10 but despite this, NMS do exist and have been reported by affected patients who are not aware of their diagnosis. The aim of this study was to examine self-reports of NMS by PD and ET patients 1 year after learning their diagnosis, and to compare these reports to those at baseline.…”