Performance of Patients with Early Parkinson Disease on an Executive and Social Cognition Battery

Abstract

Objective: To demonstrate the usefulness of incorporating the Executive and Social Cognition Battery (ESCB) to detect executive and social cognition deficits, which are otherwise not captured by more “classical” executive tests in early Parkinson disease (PD). Background: PD is a neurodegenerative disorder that includes executive and social cognition deficits. While cognitive assessment in PD still relies on classical executive tasks to detect frontal deficits, these traditional tests often fail to uncover subtle, yet relevant, frontal impairment. Methods: We evaluated 39 PD patients and 47 controls with a battery of classical executive tests and the ESCB. The ESCB includes a series of tasks that more closely resemble real-life activities and have been previously shown to be useful in detecting executive deficits in other neuropsychiatric disorders with frontal involvement. Results: We observed that both batteries used in a complementary way yielded better results, as 15 of the 39 patients presented deficits only on some of the ESCB tests, but not on the classical battery, while 5 patients presented deficits only on some tests of the classical battery, but not on the ESCB. Fourteen patients presented deficits on some tests of either battery, and 5 patients did not present deficits on any of the tests. Conclusions: We found that, used along with traditional neuropsychological tasks, the ESCB may be useful in providing a more comprehensive evaluation of frontal dysfunction among patients with PD, thus contributing to the early diagnosis of cognitive disorders in this patient population.

Social cognitive impairment in early Parkinson's disease: A novel “mild impairment”?

“…Patients could present MCI only (MoCA < 26) or SCI only (Mini-SEA < 23.1). The independence of social cognition deficit from other cognitive impairments was recently reported 27 . Esteves al (2018) 27 found that 38.5% of patients with early PD showed impairment on social cognitive tests only and not on executive tests, whereas 12.8% showed impairment on executive tests only and not on social cognitive tests in a smaller group of patients (N=39).…”

Non-pharmacological Treatment Challenges in Early Parkinson's Disease for Axial and Cognitive Symptoms: A Mini Review

“…Moreover, mild cognitive impairment represents a significant risk factor for early dementia (77). Frontal dysfunction has also been noted using the executive and social cognition battery (78).…”

Social Cognition in Parkinson's Disease: A Case‐Control Study

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate detailed social cognition with all social cognitive domains in PD in the Indian context. Given the cultural sensitivity of instruments used to assess social cognition, it is important to generate data from diverse and underrepresented social groups, particularly as impairments in this domain are being understood to be widespread in PD and prompting diagnostic reclassification 7 …”

“…In this study, up to 30% patients had social cognitive impairment prompting the authors to suggest the addition of a sixth subtype of minimal cognitive impairment in PD‐Mild Social Cognition Impairment. Cognitive assessment batteries that include social cognition assessment are being developed and were shown to pick up frontal impairments that may be missed by classical frontal lobe assessment batteries 7 …”