Description of Parkinson disease population in a neurological medical center in Cali, Colombia

Abstract

Introduction: After alzheimer dementia, Parkinson disease (PD) is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Although it is known that PD has a similar epidemiological and clinical behavior around the world we do not have local data that allow us to confirm this stament.
Objective: To describe the main sociodemographic and clinical features of the population with PD in a neurological medical center in Cali, Colombia.
Materials and methods: In the period of time from May 2009 to March 2010 we collected the clinical records of patients with PD. Sociodemographic, clinical and treatment related variables were analyzed.
Results: 83 clinical records were analyzed. 72.3 % were males, the mean age was 71 years with a mean disease duration of five years at the moment of the information collection. The symptoms started at the right body side in the 59.6% being tremor the most frequent in the 51.2%. The non-motor clinical manifestations were anxiety 34.2%, depressive symptoms 17.1% and sleep disturbances in 14.2% of the studied sample. 3.6% of the patients had family history of PD. Levodopa associated diskinesias were detected in 53.7%.
Conclusion: Regarding to motor symptoms our results are similar to those reported elsewhere, nevertheless when we compared our description of non motor manisfestations there exists lower prevalence of these complais. The former finding could be explained by a low suspicion index at the moment to asses this population. Further studies are necessaries.