›› 2009, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (7): 862-.

• Original article (Preventive medicine) • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Investigations on prevalence and risk factors of |visual hallucination in patients with Parkinson's disease

WAN Ying, WANG Gang, ZENG Jie, XIAO Qin, WANG Ying, MA Jian-fang, WANG Xi-jin, ZHOU Hai-yan,
CHEN Sheng-di   

  1. Department of Neurology, Institute of Neurology, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200025, China
  • Online:2009-07-25 Published:2009-09-16

Abstract:

Objective To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of visual hallucination among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), and analyse the potential risk factors. Methods One hundred and twenty-eight patients with PD were administered self-prepared visual hallucination questionnaires, and prevalence of visual hallucination was surveyed. The differences in sex, age, disease duration, Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores, Hoehn & Yahr stage, types of medicine used and levodopa equivalent doses (LDE) were compared between the patients with visual hallucination and those without visual hallucination. The prevalence of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) was investigated in patients with visual hallucination. Results Eighteen patients (14.06%) experienced visual hallucination, among whom 10 (55.56%) experienced visual hallucination no less than one time per day, 11(61.11%) "saw" the shadow of human figure and 15(83.33%)were complicated with RBD. There were significant differences in MMSE scores, Hoehn & Yahr stage, female proportion and usage of dopamine agonists between patients with visual hallucination and those without visual hallucination(P<0.05). Conclusion Visual hallucination is a common non-motor symptom among patients with PD, and cognitive function, disease severity and usage of dopamine agonists may be related to visual hallucination.

Key words: Parkinson´s disease, visual hallucination, Mini Mental State Exam, Hoehn &, Yahr stage, dopamine agonist