Parkinson's disease and depression

Depression has a great impact on measured quality of life in Parkinson's disease patients, although only 2% of the patients and 1% of the relatives are aware of a depression. There is no linear relation between motor impairment and depression, which suggests a disease immanent cause, most likely linked to the deficit of dopamine and other monoaminergic neurotronsmitters. Depression occurs in approximately 40-50% of the patients and may worsen functional impairment. But depression in Parkinson's disease is under-diagnosed, under-treated and under-researched. There ore only few controlled studies about antidepressants in depressed Parkinson patients. Tricyclics and selective serotonin- and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors appear to ameliorate depressive symptoms in Parkinson's disease. Selective reuptake inhibitors seem to present with a more favourable profile of adverse effects.     «

Depression has a great impact on measured quality of life in Parkinson's disease patients, although only 2% of the patients and 1% of the relatives are aware of a depression. There is no linear relation between motor impairment and depression, which suggests a disease immanent cause, most likely linked to the deficit of dopamine and other monoaminergic neurotronsmitters. Depression occurs in approximately 40-50% of the patients and may worsen functional impairment. But depression in Parkinson's...     »