Affective and personality disorders in Parkinson's disease premotor phase. Pilot study.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms are one of the factors determining quality of life among Parkinson's disease patients, but often remain underestimated by clinicians, especially in early disease stage. Objective: to study the clinical features of affective disorders and comorbid personality traits in prodrome of Parkinson's disease (PD) and their effect on treatment adherence. Materials and methods: 29 patients with PD were studied with questionnaires (Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS); Minimult personal questionnaire; DSM-IV criteria (SCID-II); Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS); Hamilton Scale for the Assessment of Depression (HAM-D)), and clinical-psychopathological method with objective information collection, neurological examination and neuropsychological testing. Results: Among the patients with PD, personality premorbid features cluster C were most prominent (48% patients). Affective disorders in the prodromal period of PD are dysthymia (13.7%); cyclothymia (6.8%); recurrent depressive disorder (34.4%); and single depressive episode (44.8%). Affective disorders in PD are characterized by late onset, the prevalence of anxiety, asthenic-apathetic symptoms, as well as a high level of alexithymia and somatization. We found the relationship of personality traits and adherence to therapy:Â the least compliant are histrionic n = 3 (10.3%) and schizotypal n = 2 (6.9%) patients. A high prevalence of dissociative reactions (55%) was noted in response to a diagnosis of PD, which is similar to cancer patients.