Prevalence and nature of self-reported visual complaints in people with Parkinson’s disease—Outcome of the Screening Visual Complaints questionnaire

Abstract

Introduction Visual complaints can have a vast impact on the quality of life of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). In clinical practice however, visual complaints often remain undetected. A better understanding of visual complaints is necessary to optimize care for people with PD and visual complaints. This study aims at determining the prevalence of visual complaints experienced by a large outpatient cohort of people with PD compared to a control group. In addition, relations between visual complaints and demographic and disease-related variables are investigated. Methods The Screening Visual Complaints questionnaire (SVCq) screened for 19 visual complaints in a cohort of people with idiopathic PD (n = 581) and an age-matched control group without PD (n = 583). Results People with PD experienced significantly more complaints than controls, and a greater impact of visual complaints on their daily lives. Complaints that were most common (‘often/always’) were unclear vision (21.7%), difficulty reading (21.6%), trouble focusing (17.1%), and blinded by bright light (16.8%). Largest differences with controls were found for double vision, needing more time to see and having trouble with traffic participation due to visual complaints. Age, disease duration, disease severity, and the amount of antiparkinsonian medication related positively to the prevalence and severity of visual complaints. Conclusion Visual complaints are highly prevalent and occur in great variety in people with PD. These complaints progress with the disease and have a large impact on the daily lives of these people. Standardized questioning is advised for timely recognition and treatment of these complaints.

Diplopia in Movement Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…The rest of the articles were manually screened by the authors in order to meet the eligibility criteria. In the end, a total of seventeen articles remained: nine were observational cross-sectional studies [ 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], two were prospective cohort studies [ 13 , 14 ], two were retrospective studies [ 15 , 16 ] and four were case reports [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. Table 1 shows detailed information about the included studies on diplopia in Parkinson’s disease.…”

“…One study compared patients with PD, PD dementia, and healthy controls [ 11 ], two studies compared PD patients with diplopia, PD patients without diplopia, and healthy controls (HC) [ 12 , 13 ], four studies examined patients with PD compared to healthy controls [ 4 , 10 , 13 , 14 ], six studies examined PD patients with and without diplopia [ 3 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 15 , 16 ], and four were case reports of PD patients with diplopia [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”

“…In a study by van der Lijn I. et al that aimed to determine the prevalence of visual complaints in 581 PD and 583 HC patients, the prevalence of diplopia reported “often/always” by PD patients was 10.8% compared to only 2.1% in the HC group. The total prevalence of diplopia was 11.2% in the PD group [ 10 ].…”

Reading Difficulties in Parkinson’s Disease: A Stepped Care Model for Neurovisual Rehabilitation

“…Reading difficulties are among the most prevalent visual complaints in people with PD, with a substantial impact on their daily lives [2,6]. Therefore, it is important to ask about these difficulties in clinical practice.…”

“…Reading difficulty is a frequently reported complaint by people with PD [2,5,6]. People with PD read slower than people without PD and have difficulty with reading comprehension [7,8].…”