Skip to main content

Drooling, Swallowing Difficulties and Health Related Quality of Life in Parkinson's Disease Patients.

Author
Abstract
:

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder associated with motor and nonmotor symptoms. Drooling, one of the nonmotor symptoms, can be present in 70-80% of patients with PD. The aim of this paper is to study the characteristics of PD patients with drooling compared to those without in terms of age, gender, disease duration, stage of the disease, swallowing difficulties, and health-related quality of life; methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted. The sample was divided into two groups: PD with drooling ( = 32) and PD without drooling ( = 30). Age, gender, disease duration and Hoehn & Yahr (H & Y) stage, Sialorrhea Clinical Scale for Parkinson's Disease (SCS-PD), the 10-item Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10), and the 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39) were compared between groups; Results: 62 individuals with PD, 40 men and 22 women (mean age 73 ± 8 years), were included. Overall, 32 patients reported drooling, and 30 did not exhibit it. The ANCOVA found significant differences between groups for the EAT-10 score (0.83, 95% CI = 5.62-9.03; = 0.016) and SCS-PD score (1.48, 95% CI = 0.86-6.81; < 0.001). Analysis of the PDQ-39 scores revealed no significant differences between groups for the PDQ-39 total score ( > 0.057) and in all subscales. The inclusion of gender, age, disease duration, and H & Y as covariates did not influence the results (all > 0.05).

Year of Publication
:
2021
Journal
:
International journal of environmental research and public health
Volume
:
18
Issue
:
15
Date Published
:
2021
ISSN Number
:
1661-7827
URL
:
https://www.mdpi.com/resolver?pii=ijerph18158138
DOI
:
10.3390/ijerph18158138
Short Title
:
Int J Environ Res Public Health
Download citation